Labour has just moved the dial on workers’ rights – now it must go further

After years of decline, workers’ rights are finally improving. The question is whether the Government is willing to enforce deeper structural change.

From sick pay to paternity rights - things are slowly improving. Pic: Unsplash

After a long Easter weekend of rest, routine resumes. But for millions of workers across the UK, something has shifted. They return to their offices, factories and workplaces with greater security than they had just days ago.

A suite of new employment rights marks one of the most meaningful upgrades to labour protections in a generation. Workers now have day-one rights to paternity leave and sick pay, stronger whistleblowing protections, and access to a new enforcement body with real teeth. Taken together, this is the most significant uplift to workers’ rights in decades and a recognition that the balance of power at work was tilted too far for too long.

For years, British workers were asked to accept a quiet erosion of their rights at the price of economic growth. Under the Conservatives’ fourteen years in office, those rights were hollowed out. Zero-hours contracts proliferated, insecure work spread and enforcement withered. The result was a labour market that left workers sicker, more anxious and more insecure.

This Labour government promised to reverse that trend, and it is moving in the right direction. The expansion of statutory sick pay is perhaps the clearest example. Removing the lower earnings threshold and waiting period means the lowest-paid are no longer forced to choose between their health and their income. It is a long-overdue correction, and one that campaigners, including we at The Lead, have previously pushed for.

Then there is the extension of day-one rights to paternity leave, allowing someone to give notice of leave from the first day of their employment. Of course, care responsibilities do not begin after six months in a job, and nor should the right to meet them. For younger workers in insecure roles, this is a meaningful step forward.

Other changes matter too. Whistleblowers making sexual harassment disclosures now have protection from detrimental and unfair dismissal. And the creation of the Fair Work Agency shows that this government understands how rights can only be upheld if there is a body there to enforce them.

All of this deserves credit. After years in which flexibility came at the expense of security, the dial is starting to move back.

But, as ever, there are still areas where the government must go further. Britain does not lack regulators; it lacks regulators with teeth, and the Fair Work Agency will only succeed if it is properly resourced. Without serious investment, enforcement could well remain patchy and the most vulnerable workers are susceptible to slipping through the cracks.

Statutory sick pay, meanwhile, is still too low. Expanding access is important, but adequacy matters too. At a time where the cost of living remains the highest concern for workers across the country, if employees still cannot afford to take time off, the underlying problem persists.

More fundamentally, the reforms stop short of addressing the central feature of Britain’s labour market: the normalisation of insecurity itself. Zero-hours contracts remain legal. While their worst excesses will be curbed through rights to guaranteed hours and compensation, questions persist about who exactly qualifies and how guaranteed hours are calculated, while the underlying model of insecure work remains intact. And while much will be shaped through implementation, the long-standing imbalance of power means unions and workers will face an uphill battle to ensure these rights are meaningfully upheld.

That tension is evident in the Government’s approach. Even as it strengthens protections, it remains sensitive to the costs imposed on business, with estimates of up to £5bn frequently referenced. Businesses are – like the rest of Britain – undoubtedly struggling at the moment, but what is described as a cost in this context is more of a rebalancing. For years, workers have absorbed the hidden costs of flexibility through unstable incomes and limited protections. These reforms begin to modestly reverse that.

There is also a conspicuous gap where the future of work should be. As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in everything from recruitment to performance monitoring, a new imbalance is emerging between worker and machine. Decisions about hiring, scheduling and performance are increasingly being made by opaque systems, often with little explanation or recourse. Without clear rights around transparency and accountability, artificial intelligence risks trampling over these reforms and entrenching exactly the kind of insecurity this is set to address.

None of that diminishes what has been achieved, and the direction of travel is clear. But the question now is whether the Government is prepared to go further. Because a labour market that is more productive, more stable and more humane requires a deliberate rebalancing of power, and the political will to see it through.■

About the author: Zoë Grünewald is Westminster Editor at The Lead and a freelance political journalist and broadcaster.

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