The Telegraph reports that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds have told bosses and unions that they were working on a policy which could force employers to offer zero-hour workers a regular contract after 12 weeks.
One person involved in the discussions said the legal obligation would follow McDonald’s lead, after the fast food chain offered staff the chance to switch to contracts with minimum guaranteed hours back in 2017. At the time it said most chose to stay on flexible contracts.
A Whitehall source said ministers wanted to put forward the three-month idea as it was easier to get a ‘yes or a no’ from bosses on a specific figure and then flesh out the details from there.
Businesses and unions in the meeting, which took place via video conference call on Wednesday (18 September), were split over whether three months was the right amount of time, one source said, with one business executive understood to have suggested a longer period while a union representative made the case for a shorter one.
It comes as the new Government prepares to unveil its new Employment Rights Bill next month.
Labour had promised to ban zero-hour contracts as part of its ‘new deal for working people’.
However, details are still being thrashed out following a pushback from businesses, which, according to The Telegraph, led to a decision not to ban zero-hour contracts outright.
Under the legislation, ‘fire and rehire’ and ‘fire and replace’ practises will also be abolished, which will be done by reforming the law to ‘provide effective remedies and replacing the previous Government’s statutory code’.
Companies could also be forced to pay people for late notice shift cancellations so that workers are not in a position ‘where their shift is cancelled when they’re already on the bus to work’.
Hospitality and leisure bosses have been warning that a ban on zero hours would make it harder to hire and cause ‘unintended consequences’ for the economy.
Advocates of zero-hour contracts also argue that they offer staff the flexibility to work when suits them.
Around 1.1m people in Britain, or 3.4% of the British population, are currently on zero-hour contracts in the UK, according to The Work Foundation at Lancaster University.
