Joanne Thomas - Usdaw general secretary says: “Usdaw represents hundreds of thousands of working parents and, today, we are rightly celebrating the role that mums play in the home, community, workplace and wider society. We also continue our all-year-round campaign to improve workplace rights for parents and carers. This year sees important new measures from the Employment Rights Act starting to come into force.
“The new Act is the biggest upgrade in workplace rights in a generation and will tackle the low-paid and insecure work too many parents are impacted by. Alongside this, the Government has significantly increased the minimum wage, extended the reach of paternity leave and unpaid parental leave by making them day-one rights, is ending the two-child cap on in-work benefits, and extended free childcare and breakfast clubs in schools. Much done, but there is more to do, and we look forward to the Government acting on their reviews of Universal Credit and parental leave and pay.
“The most effective way to deliver these new rights and achieve better pay, decent work and fairness for working parents is for employers to recognise trade unions. Parents in unorganised workplaces face particular problems asserting their rights, so strong trade unions and workplace reps are crucial to ensure they are not missing out.”
The Employment Rights Act will:
- Require employers to give reasonable notice of shift changes and cancellations.
- Make flexible working the default, unless the employer proves it is unreasonable.
- Provide statutory rights for workplace equalities representatives.
- Require employers to protect staff from customer harassment.
- Make paternity, parental and bereavement leave available from day one.
- Ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, with a right to a regular-hours contract.
- Make Statutory Sick Pay available from day one of absence for all workers.
- Challenge unfair dismissal after 6 months in a job, instead of 2 years.
- Improve redundancy consultation.
- Introduce fair and reasonable access to workplaces for trade unions.
- Give workers an effective voice by simplifying trade union recognition.
- Ban fire and rehire in all but the most extreme circumstances.
- Put enforcement of employment rights into a single fair work agency.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest with around 370,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also represents many workers in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
Usdaw’s Supporting Parents and Carers campaign: www.usdaw.org.uk/campaigns/supporting-parents-and-carers/
For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Bluesky @usdawunion.bsky.social and Twitter/X @UsdawUnion