Bosses will be barred from contacting their staff by phone, WhatsApp or email outside working hours under a Labor government, according to plans that are expected to be in the party’s general election manifesto.
The same comes the proposal of the deputy group leader Angela Rayner, who is also shadow secretary of state for the future of work workers they are inundated with messages during the evenings, weekends and holidays.
He told the Financial Times that “constant emails and calls outside of work shouldn’t be the norm and are hurting work-life balance for many.”
Rayner acknowledged that there would be times when contact is needed, such as with workers who are on call or those working overtime.
“We will see how to implement it in practice, learning from the countries where it has been successfully introduced,” he said.
The so-called “right to shut down” would echo legislation in France, where since 2017 all staff have had the right to log off phones and laptops outside working hours.
In 2018, a worker at the French branch of Rentokil, the British pest control company, was awarded €60,000 after the company failed to honor his right to disconnect. Other countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, followed France’s lead.
Last month Belgium began requiring all employers with more than 20 employees to introduce a company policy, while the Scottish government has agreed a similar arrangement with unions representing civil servants.
However, the legislation will not necessarily help those who feel pressured to log in outside working hours to meet deadlines. Jon Boys, an economist at the CIPD body for human resources professionals, said employees who are most likely expected to work after hours tended to be the “most privileged” and highly skilled, for whom it was “one of the trade-offs that they do when they take those higher positions.”
Of work the policies have come under increasing scrutiny since the party took the lead in opinion polls ahead of the general election scheduled for next year. The policies are part of a larger employment reform package, dubbed a “Workers’ New Deal,” that gives workers more rights.
One of the biggest changes would be banning the controversial ‘zero-hour contracts’, while also outlawing the practice of ‘fire and re-hire’, in which companies fire an employee and then reinstate them on worse terms.
Other proposals include the provision of flexible working where there is no reason why a job cannot be done on variable hours or remotely.
The Conservative Party promised to make flexible working the ‘default’ in its 2019 manifesto, but shelved that proposal. Instead, it is using secondary legislation to give workers the “right to request” flexible work.
The Institute of Directors said it welcomed the government’s plan to give workers the “right to request” flexible working, but acknowledged that applying flexible working would be “problematic” for some employers.
The job would also guarantee sick pay and holiday entitlement from the first day of work and offer workers protection against unfair dismissal. Right now, employees can usually only appeal a layoff if they’ve been with their employer for two years and lower income earners aren’t eligible for statutory sick pay.
The work would also give workers the right to negotiate “fair pay deals” through sectoral collective bargaining. This is a critical demand from unions, although similar deals recently introduced in Australia and New Zealand have been opposed by business groups.
The New Deal for Workers is part of a draft manifesto, most of which will be signed by the party’s “national political forum” over the summer.
—————————————————-
Source link