STUC Women’s Conference 2025: Usdaw seeks improved flexible working, parental leave and pay rights

Retail trade union Usdaw had a delegation of members, reps and officials attending the annual Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) Women’s Conference, which took place on 29-30th October in Glasgow. The union submitted a motion on improving flexible working legislation and another on reforming, improving and extending parental leave and pay rights.

Joanne Thomas – Usdaw general secretary said:

We welcome the recent improvements to the right to request flexible working, including removing the length of service requirement. However, the right still operates on the assumption that workers can freely negotiate flexible working, when few have little power to do so. To ask for flexible working continues to be risky for low-paid women workers because they can be perceived as being unreliable or uncommitted. The UK Labour Government’s commitment to making flexible working the default is welcome, as is the right to guaranteed hours and notice of shift change as set out in the Employment Rights Bill, but more needs to be done to level the playing field between workers and managers to rid the labour market of one-sided flexibility.

Usdaw is calling on the STUC to continue making the case for further changes to strengthen flexible working rights:

• Abolish the restriction on the number of applications an employee can make.
• Extend the right to all workers.
• Introduce the ‘advertising duty’ to outline the flexible working options available when advertising jobs.
• Reintroduce the right to a written decision, a right of appeal and the right to be accompanied in meetings.
• Reintroduce the power of employment tribunals to make wider recommendations.
• Increase the level of penalties for non-compliance.

Turning to the motion on reforming, improving and extending parental leave and pay rights, Joanne Thomas continued:

The UK Labour Government’s commitment to reviewing the current framework of statutory parental leave and pay rights is welcome. Unions have a strong track record of negotiating improvements to parental leave and pay rights for working parents and carers; however, the scale and scope of those improvements is necessarily limited by the current statutory framework of parental leave. Family leave entitlement does not work for millions of families: it does not support families to share caring responsibilities equally and this entrenches the discrimination that women face in the workplace. Improving parental leave and pay rights to achieve more equal parenting is a process that will take many years and require significant investment. The current review represents the start of this process.

Usdaw is calling for the current system of parental rights to be replaced by a simpler, more equal system:

• Providing stronger rights for each parent.
• Supporting both parents to make meaningful decisions about how they combine paid work with care.
• Reducing pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
• Promoting gender equality and closing the gender pay gap.

Usdaw say –

At the very least, pay and leave rights must be accessible to all regardless of employment status and available from day one; and individual, stand-alone, paid entitlements.

Any reform must not diminish, but extend and improve, existing rights and should be part of a package of wider reform including improvements to childcare and flexible working.