{"id":217795,"date":"2025-06-27T05:26:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217795\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T05:26:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T05:26:25","slug":"fire-and-rehire-employment-reforms-need-rethink-says-uk-union-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217795\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Fire and rehire\u2019 employment reforms need rethink says UK union leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

The UK government needs to urgently rethink a key element of its flagship workers\u2019 rights reforms to avoid inadvertently creating \u201ca veto on all contractual change\u201d, according to a leading trade unionist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mike Clancy, general secretary of the union Prospect, said provisions in the employment rights bill intended to stop employers using controversial \u201cfire and rehire\u201d tactics to impose worse terms and conditions on their staff could backfire unless the draft legislation was amended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is essential to ban the practice of fire and rehire, but the government must be careful it doesn\u2019t inadvertently create a veto against all contractual change,\u201d he told the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

Both business groups and employment lawyers are concerned that in its current form, the legislation could make it very difficult for employers to make routine organisational changes \u2014 such as a relocation from one city to another, where some employees did not want to move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unions<\/a> including Prospect have fought hard for stringent curbs on fire and rehire to be included in the sweeping overhaul of employment law \u2014 which also encompasses a big upgrade of union rights \u2014 and have been adamant that ministers should not cede to business lobbying to water them down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The aim is to stop employers using coercive tactics to cut pay or benefits, except where they face such acute financial difficulties that the changes are essential to keep operating.<\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters in Dover after P&O Ferries suspended sailings and handed 800 seafarers immediate severance notices in 2022 \u00a9 Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n

Banning fire and rehire became a rallying cry for unions after a series of large employers used the tactics to force through restructurings during the pandemic, and after P&O Ferries sacked its entire UK crew and replaced it with cheaper agency staff in 2022.<\/p>\n

Parliamentary debate on the employment rights bill is nearing its closing stages, giving ministers their last opportunity to propose amendments to the legislation before it reaches the statute book.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But debates have dragged on over key elements of the legislation and the bill now looks unlikely to reach royal assent before the autumn<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the bill comes into force, what is an employer seeking to relocate its business supposed to do? Does it just accept that any dismissals will be unfair?\u201d asked Darren Newman, an employment lawyer, adding that this could put the government on the hook for compensation if it moved departments away from London and some civil servants refused to move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another big area of concern is the practicality of a ban on zero hour contracts, where businesses and unions are still wrestling with the difficulty of spelling out how a new right to guaranteed hours should be framed in regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AZero hour contracts have proved highly contentious \u00a9 Dominic Lipinski\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Business groups are also still fiercely opposed to proposals to give workers protection against unfair dismissal from the first day in a job. They say it remains unclear how a new statutory probation process will work and that the lack of clarity is already deterring hiring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFear of the bill is influencing businesses\u2019 behaviour,\u201d said Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, adding that even though it would take years to implement the legislation, clients were already citing it as a factor in their decisions.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Reynolds, business secretary, told journalists on the sidelines of a conference on Thursday that he was \u201cabsolutely certain\u201d of addressing businesses\u2019 concerns over a statutory probation period, but that \u201cI have to have the bill passed first before we go into the implementation\u201d.<\/p>\n

When it came to the details of offering workers\u2019 guaranteed hours, there was \u201cmore than enough room\u201d to reach agreement with businesses and unions, he said, adding that he recognised the need to avoid a \u201cvery onerous\u201d process. <\/p>\n

Clancy said that while some details could be settled through later consultation and regulation, key parts of the bill needed further work before it became law. \u201cIf you have set architecture that constrains further discussions, that will be a problem,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Department for Business and Trade was contacted for comment on the calls to rethink the fire and rehire provisions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[51,897,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-217795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114753672676715079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}