Election Watch: An Employment Law Guide to the 2015 General Election
Before you read any further this isn’t a spin-off to Spring Watch presented by Michaela Strachan.
The 2015 General Election is just over 40 days away and employment law could be a contentious issue. Many of the big parties have already set out their stall on how they intend to tackle employment issues and we thought now would be a good time to outline these policies.
Conservatives
- Significant changes to rules on industrial action making it more difficult for unions to strike
- Raise the minimum wage to £7.00 in the near future.
- Exclusive zero hours contracts to be scrapped.
- Repeal of the Human Rights Act and the introduction of a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
- Create three million more apprenticeship jobs.
Liberal Democrats
- A single national minimum wage for 16 to 17-year-olds in work and first year of apprentices.
- A national minimum wage enforcement section will be introduced
- Making the disclosure of equal pay information compulsory for companies employing over 250 people
- Granting fathers an additional four weeks’ paternity leave.
UKIP
- Repeal the Agency Workers Directive, which gives agency workers who have been hired for 12 continuous weeks the right to equal treatment with employees
- Allow businesses the right to discriminate in favour of young British workers.
- Withdraw the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, and repeal the Human Rights Act.
Labour
- Raise the minimum wage to £8.00 by 2020
- An increased fines for employers who fail to pay the minimum wage, and a tax rebate to employers who commit to pay the living wage.
- Introduce new rights for employees on zero hours contracts
- Reform the current Employment Tribunal system to ensure all workers have proper access to justice.
- Increasing the current entitlement to statutory paternity leave from two to four weeks and increasing paternity pay to a minimum of £260.00 per week.
Green Party
- Turn the national minimum wage into a genuine living wage
- Work towards a 35-hour working week
- Introduce equal pay audits for larger employers
- Introduce more generous maternity and paternity leave.
- Ensure that workers’ rights apply to part-time, casual workers and the self-employed, and from the first day of employment.
- Reduce corporation tax for small firms to 20%.
