Employment law update – 11 November 2025 – London

Employment Law Update Blog 11 November

More than 80 delegates attended IER’s annual Employment Law Update, held at NEU headquarters, this year’s topically focussing on the government’s Employment Rights Bill (ERB).

Appropriately, the conference kicked off with Institute Chair Lord John Hendy, who gave a detailed analysis of the Bill’s positives and weaknesses.

Noting that the government had described the Bill as the biggest advance in workers’ rights in a generation, John wryly pointed out that it would be the only such advance in recent years.

Lord Hendy wound the clock back to the 1979 election of Thatcher; the introduction of neo-liberalism and the seven acts of Parliament whose purpose was to emasculate the power of working people.

The result was that, while in the 1970s 80% of UK workers had been covered by collective agreements, that proportion was now down to around a third, leading to dramatic fall in trade-union membership, chronic wage stagnation and growth in inequality.

John noted that on that very morning, the EU’s Court of Justice would be ruling on a case in which EU member states would need to take steps to bring the proportion of workers covered by collective agreements up to 80%.

In Britain, following the Thatcher-era anti-union laws, individual rights, had dominated industrial relations, and while the current ERB sought to build on those individual rights, the crucial need was for restoration of collective rights.

John mentioned that the restrictions in current UK law on strike action remained in breach of international law and that while reforms to recognition machinery were included in the Bill, huge gaps remained.  The Bill’s provisions on trade-union access were also  to be welcomed, but on the whole, it fell far short of the promises set out in the New Deal for Workers published in 2021.

Edward Harlow, acting President of the National Education Union   emphasised that the education sector’s ‘independent pay review body’ was designed to look like collective bargaining but in reality, was anything but, with built-in limitations and government interference in an ostensibly independent process.

Edward emphasised that trade-union power comes from being able to take on the government, but that there were challenges in doing this, given the current constraints on balloting rules, and in reality, he said strike action was the only negotiating power left for education unions.

Jo Seery from Thompsons Solicitors explained in detail the likely impact the ERB would have on trade unions.

A ballot for industrial action would require a simple majority of those voting rather than a minimum 50% turnout, and there would be a reduction in the detailed information expected from the union when balloting, with the validity of the ballot extended to 12 months.

New regulations were also aimed at ensuring that workers would not be subject to detriment of taking industrial action, with dismissal being automatically unfair throughout the period of industrial action.

On trade-union recognition ballots, Jo noted that some admissibility criteria would be reduced or removed, and only a simple majority of those in the bargaining unit now required in a recognition ballot.

Turning to trade-union access to the workplace, Jo noted that the new access rights – like many of the Bill’s provisions – would be subject to consultation. The proposals would provide the right for an independent union to request access the workplace or workers generally for the purposes to meet, support, represent, recruit or organise workers, and if refused the union would have the right to complain to the CAC for a determination. There is also a new duty on employers to inform workers in writing that at commencement of employment that they have the right to join a union.

Daniel Kindell of Morrish Solicitors focussed on collective redundancy, and the steps to be taken to introduce consultations on regulations on fire-and-rehire and collective redundancies.

Daniel pointed to the provisions which would make dismissal automatically unfair in the event of the employers making ‘restricted variations’ and which the employee did not accept. Changes to conditions of employment would not be allowed where employees were carrying out substantially the same duties.

The government had made provision to introduce a regulation-threshold consultation to amend the current provisions, and the protective award currently set at 90 days would be extended to 180 days.

The vital question of securing a single legal status for workers in order to deliver employment rights was addressed by IER Vice-President Professor Nicola Countouris. Nicola emphasised the crucial impact that the absence of a new and comprehensive ‘worker’ definition would have on the effectiveness of many of the ERB’s provisions.

Without a single, comprehensive worker definition in the Bill, rights would be allocated inconsistently across the workforce, he said.

There were three different definitions of a worker across existing legislation, further complicated by case-law decisions. The result, Nicola asserted, was inconsistent rights and confusion, along with enforcement challenges, offering loopholes for employers seeking to avoid implementing new workers’ rights

What was needed was a broad and flexible definition of a worker which captured the breadth of employment relationships, and that the Status of Workers Bill, tabled by Lord John Hendy in 2023, offered a coherent solution to this complex issue.

Campaign for Trade Union Freedom assistant secretary Adrian Weir, who chaired the day’s proceedings, provided a summing-up on the need to campaign for full implementation of the promises contained in the New Deal for Working People.

Noting that CTUF had called for an Employment Rights #2 Bill to address the current measure’s deficiencies, he outlined the key demands for the collective rights he said were missing from the current Bill, which would also bring UK law into compliance with international legal standards.

Roger Jeary