Getty Images

Unfair dismissal

Zero-hours contracts and flexible working

Flexible working

Getty Images

Sick pay

Unpaid parental and bereavement leave

What isn’t in the Employment Rights Bill?

THE BEST airport in the world is now in Europe – and there are cheap flights there from the UK.

Istanbul Airport has been voted the best by Conde Nast Traveler in it’s

5

5

Advertisement

5

It was also voted the best earlier this year by Travel + Leisure.

It opened in 2018, before welcoming passengers in 2019.

The airport has routes to 317 destinations with including London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Some of the cheapest are with Wizz Air, flying from London Stansted which can be found for as little as £47 return.

And Turkish Airlines is hoping to connect Istanbul Airport to both Glasgow and Newcastle for the first time.

But if you want to spend some time at the airport or you have a long layover, there is a lot to keep you busy

One of its main attractions is the Istanbul Airport Museum – one of the the largest of its kinds in the world.

Inside are 316 works from 29 museums, with the current exhibition being Türkiye’s Treasures; Faces of the Throne.

There is also the Istanbul Airport library, with 2,000 books to choose from.

For younger kids there are 11 kids playgrounds to choose from.

Five of theme are themed, called Cigaland Forest, Cigaland Space, Cigaland Sea, Cigaland Sky and Cigaland Ice.

There is even a designated Youth Lounge area – suited for anyone between 15 and 30 – with Playstations, board games, a football table and projectors, as well as snacks and drinks.

An on-site spa has massages, manicures and haircuts and you can even reserve private sleeping pods showers and ‘business pods’ for working.

Even the airports restaurants are award-winning, being named the World’s best Airport Dining by Skytrax this year.

5

Advertisement

5

With more than 100 restaurants and cafes, Saltbae even opened his first airport restaurant there last year.

It’s on-site airport hotel, Yotel is one of the biggest airport hotels in the world, and is the largest in Europe.

There are 451 rooms to choose from, with 171 landside and 280 airside.

Istanbul Airport also hopes to become the world’s largest aviation hub.

The four-phase expansion, set to be complete by 2025, will increase its capacity from 90million to 120million.

And by 2028, this will expand to 200million, with six new runways.

Chief executive Selahattin Bilgen told CNBC: “Istanbul Airport is breaking records in European aviation.

“About 80 per cent of our passengers are international, and half of these are transfer passengers, contributing directly to our economy through their foreign exchange expenditures.”

Istanbul Airport beat Singapore’s Changi Airport, often also named one of the worlds best airports.

And the airport has revealed plans for a new £7.6billion terminal – which will take passenger numbers to 120million a year.

We’ve also rounded up five huge new airports set to open in Europe in the next few decades.

MILLIONS of workers are set to receive enhanced sick pay, maternity benefits, and stronger job protections under new Labour proposals.

The Employment Rights Bill, unveiled this morning, will grant sick pay from the very first day of illness.

1

Pregnant women and new mothers will also benefit from stronger protections when returning to work.

Zero hour contracts and fire and rehire practices, long deemed exploitative, are also set to be abolished.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the Employment Rights Bill will elevate the baseline of employment rights and improve living standards nationwide.

In a statement this morning, he said: “This is a pro-worker, pro-business plan.

“The government will tackle head-on the issues within the UK labour market that are holding Britain back.

“The Plan to Make Work Pay sets out a vision for modern and fair employment protections that will set the country up for the future.”

Details of many policies in the Bill will now go through a consultation process.

The government added that it expects the new rules to come into force in 2026.

For now, we’ve outlined exactly what’s on the table and what it means for you.

Parental and bereavement leave

Currently, only individuals legally classified as employees are eligible for paternity leave.

To qualify, one must have been continuously employed by their employer for at least 26 weeks leading up to any day in the “qualifying week,” the 15th week before the baby’s due date.

This means those classified as workers are not entitled to paternity leave and must use their annual leave to take time off.

The Employment Rights Bill aims to change this by introducing day-one entitlement to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave.

It will also improve maternity protections for expecting and new mothers.

This includes protection from dismissal whilst pregnant, on maternity leave and within six months of returning to work.   

Plus, the Bill will also establish a statutory entitlement to bereavement leave.

At the moment, there is no legal right to paid time off for bereavement in the UK, but employers can offer it voluntarily.

Flexible working

Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, for example having flexible start and finish times, or working from home.

Currently, all employees have the legal right to request flexible working. 

An employer can refuse an application if they have a good business reason for doing so.

However, the Employment Rights Bill will give employees the right to flexible working as default.

The move is said to increase the likelihood of a request for flexible working arrangements to be granted.

However, if an employer can prove this work pattern is “unreasonable” they might still be able to deny it.

At the moment, it’s not clear how these reasons will be interpreted.

Sick pay

Under current statutory sick pay rules, only those earning an average of over £123 a week are eligible.

Those who qualify receive £116.75 per week if they are too ill to work.

Your employer pays this amount for up to 28 weeks, with payments starting after the first three days of leave.

However, the Employment Rights Bill proposes eliminating the earnings threshold to qualify.

It will also ditch the three-day waiting period before workers begin receiving payments.

Unfair dismissal 

Dismissal is when your employer ends your employment – they do not always have to give you notice.

If you have been with the company for at least two years, you have the right to receive a written explanation, which should be in the form of a letter or email.

The law states that it is always unfair if you are dismissed for an “automatically unfair” reason.

You can also challenge your employer if they dismiss you for a discriminatory reason.

If you were dismissed for a different reason and have worked for your employer for less than two years, you do not have the right to challenge it.

However, the Employment Rights Bill promises day one protection from unfair dismissal.

According to officials, around nine million workers who have been with their employer for less than two years will benefit from this change.

Probation periods

A probation period is a designated timeframe at the start of an individual’s employment, during which they can be dismissed with little or no notice if deemed unsuitable for the role.

Currently, there are no specific rules on the duration of these periods, which typically range from three to six months in the UK.

However, the Employment Rights Bill proposes introducing a statutory probation period for new hires, with the government consulting on a nine-month duration.

The government asserts that this will allow for a thorough assessment of an employee’s suitability for a role while reassuring employees that they have rights from day one.

It suggests this initiative will enable businesses to take chances on new hires and give more people the confidence to re-enter the job market or change careers, ultimately improving their living standards.

Zero hour contracts

A zero hour contract, also known as a casual contract, is an employment agreement where the employer does not guarantee a minimum number of working hours for the employee.

At the same time, the employee is not obliged to accept any work offered.

The Employment Rights Bill promises to ditch zero hour contracts in their current form.

This legislation will provide casual workers the right to a guaranteed hours contract if they have worked regular hours over a defined period, thereby offering greater earnings security.

However, the government has confirmed that individuals who prefer to remain on zero hour contracts will still have the option to do so.

Fire and rehire

Fire and rehire, also known as dismissal and re-engagement, is a practice where an employer sacks employees and rehires them on different, often less favourable, terms and conditions. 

This approach is typically employed when employers seek to implement changes to employment contracts that employees might not voluntarily accept.

Currently, fire and rehire is not outright illegal in the UK.

However, the Employment Rights Bill will ban the practice in all but extreme circumstances.

Minimum wage

Currently, there are two different minimum wage rates that all workers across the UK are entitled to: the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage.

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is the minimum pay per hour for workers who have left school.

Right now, 18 to 20-year-olds must earn at least £8.60 an hour.

Meanwhile, the National Living Wage is the minimum wage for those over 21, and is slightly higher.

It was previously only available to those over 23, but this was adjusted to 21 and over in November 2023.

It’s currently worth £11.44 an hour.

Young workers aged 18 to 20 are expected to see a substantial increase in their statutory rate as the Employment Rights Bill will direct the Low Pay Commission to remove all age bands that set lower minimum wages for younger staff.

When the ceramicist and author Peter Schlesinger moved to New York nearly half a century ago, he was told not to live south of 14th Street. His partner Eric Boman needed an apartment large enough to house a studio for his fashion photography, but Eileen Ford, head of a leading agency, told them it was too dangerous to send her models into Lower Manhattan.

SoHo was too expensive, but many of the old industrial premises further north, in the Ladies’ Mile near the Flatiron district, were empty and not yet rezoned for residential use. There the couple chose an entire unpartitioned floor in a former girdle factory, with other impoverished artists for neighbours. “Even on lower Park Avenue, you had to be careful going into the clubs at night,” Schlesinger, now 76, recalls. “It was drug ridden — but a wonderful place.”

He says the “artsy people” have since moved out, and fashion shoots have shifted from photographers’ own studios to more grandiose venues. Through his large windows, he can he see the nearby penthouses of Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Bezos. Many other wealthy inhabitants live in the conversions of old buildings and the modern towers that have risen up around his home.

Today, the apartment is more conventionally partitioned, with two large studios at one end and an airy, high-ceilinged living area at the other. In the middle stands one of the factory’s original iron pillars, which Schlesinger considered “too thin” and enveloped in plaster in the form of a white classical ribbed column. “It was my first sculpture,” he says.

Schlesinger, a native Californian, came to public attention in the late 1960s when, as the lover of the British artist David Hockney, he was immortalised (clothed) in Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) and (naked) in Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool. The 1973 film A Bigger Splash, directed by Jack Hazan, is a semifictional film about their break-up.

He holds up a faded telex he came across recently and has had framed: an invitation to Studio 54 from Warhol, with Blondie in attendance

The couple met in Los Angeles and then moved to the UK, where Schlesinger studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and went on to forge a career as a photographer, artist and ceramicist. Two of his early paintings hang on the walls of the apartment: a friend bathed in light in his North Kensington flat; and two vases on a table, a hint at his passion for pottery, now his primary focus. Today he is represented by Tristan Hoare in London and David Lewis Gallery in New York, and his work is held in collections including Farnsworth Art Museum, and the Manchester Gallery of Art.

His first book of photographs, A Checkered Past, published in 2003, recounts with colourful candour the social whirl of 1960s and 1970s London. He still loves the stories, describing the dinner where he first met Boman following the premiere of Visconti’s Death in Venice; they were at Mr Chow in Knightsbridge, with Fred Hughes, Andy Warhol’s business manager, Manolo Blahnik, the Spanish shoe designer, and Paloma Picasso. “Those were very formative years, and they remain very close friends. I speak to Manolo every week to gossip.”

Schlesinger and Boman soon became a couple, and after a few years decided to leave London. “Rents were cheap but finding a place was difficult; buying was very expensive and it was hard to make a living. In 1978 everyone was moving to New York, which was bustling.”

Their partying continued in their adopted city. Schlesinger tells of attending the opening of the Limelight Club with Warhol. “He was very friendly, not as he is sometimes portrayed. But I was shy. He liked Eric, who loved talking and telling stories.” He holds up a faded telex he came across recently and has had framed: an invitation to Studio 54 from Warhol, with Blondie in attendance.

Boman, with whom Schlesinger lived until his death in 2022, began working for Vogue, Vanity Fair and House & Garden. One of his photos of Brooke Shields hangs in the hallway, and Boman’s former studio is piled with albums, boxes and photographs. “It’s a mess,” says Schlesinger, who is hiring an archivist to sort through it. In the corridor between their two studios, he opens a cupboard to reveal shelves of photo albums from 1968 until 1992 — some reproduced in a second book published in 2015, A Photographic Memory 1968–1989. “It was very different then. You can’t take anonymous pictures any more. Everyone is posing for Instagram.”

The bond between them is reflected in the decor. Boman’s Murano glass pieces and Schlesinger’s Poole pottery collection are on display. He recalls the fun they had rummaging in flea markets in London, and later, in New York, developing a taste for mid-century furniture. The house now has several pieces by American designer Edward Wormley.

Schlesinger has moved his own desk into his late partner’s studio to create an office. On a shelf, he has placed a large vase that Boman had wanted him to make, decorated with the daisies he loved.

He continues to work in his own studio next door. Here, two partially-completed pots are wrapped up. Slabs of fresh clay from Sheffield, Massachusetts, are ready to be bound with “slip” from a jar nearby. He is proud of making his own glaze from ash, and of a technique to mould handles directly into the form rather than attach them separately. His pots mix ancient tropes with modern wit — playing with colour and pattern. 

He first took lessons from potter friends in 1987, and now makes two or three works at a time, some of which are up to a metre high. For a while, it was more than a creative pursuit: “It was therapy — or an escape when Eric was ill.”

For a number of years, he struggled to find a dealer and used a small kiln in the studio “until I set the sprinklers off and soaked the apartments below.” A grant from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in the mid-1990s enabled him to buy a larger kiln and create more ambitious pieces.

The kiln lives at Schlesinger’s second home on Long Island, a 19th-century house at Bellport. He travels there to fire his ceramics and stays for four months every summer. “I wanted a real home. We both wanted a garden.”

He sits down on a sofa in the living room, its green, grey and yellow colours matching — “perhaps too closely” — those of his vast painting behind, of the Bellport garden, showing its plants, a small pond and a yellow fish that swam in it “before the egrets got them”.

While this living area is spotless and almost museum-like (partly as he is preparing for guests), his bedroom feels more personal. A painting by Hockney from his pulp paper period hangs on a wall, the name “Peter” written in large letters beneath Schlesinger’s face; opposite are two small sketches of him, also by the British artist.

There are photos of his mother, and also of Cecil Beaton. There are images of novelists and playwrights Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood, whom he and Hockney got to know well on the West Coast, and a painting of a youthful Jack Larson, the actor and librettist. 

He says he does not have a favourite possession, although when pressed he cites a series of Japanese antiques collected by his aunt after the second world war, including two lamps and Imari chinaware. “Growing up, I would explore her closets full of antique objects,” he says. “That is where my love of collecting came from”.

He also picks up a solid metal “High energy bar” artwork, a gift from the artist Walter De Maria shortly after he moved to London: a symbolic reminder that, while he continues to be a highly productive artist in the present, the past is always held close.

Peter Schlesinger is showing at Tristan Hoare Gallery at PAD London, Berkeley Square, until October 13. padesignart.com

Andrew Jack is global education editor for the Financial Times

Find out about our latest stories first — follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are racing to win support from Latinos in battleground states — voters with the potential to break a polling gridlock in one of the tightest White House contests ever.

Both candidates will travel to Nevada and Arizona in the coming days, swing states where Latinos make up more than a fifth of the electorate, and separately take part in televised events on Univision, the US’s largest Spanish-language channel by audience.

“The Latino voter is emerging as the fastest-growing segment of the blue- collar workforce,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and author of The Latino Century. As a proportion of the electorate they would also be bigger than the margin of victory in any swing state, he added.

With the race virtually tied in all seven swing states, the campaigns are looking to eke out gains among a once-reliably Democratic group that has drifted to the right and grown.

“You don’t need huge shifts. A couple [of] points is small as a polling subsample but it’s tectonic in the real world,” said Madrid.

Harris’s campaign this week launched “Hombres for Harris”, an initiative to court Latino men — a group that has increasingly been drawn to Trump’s strongman rhetoric and economic agenda.

Pew estimates about 36.2mn Latinos will be eligible to vote this year, or about 15 per cent of the electorate — double their share in 2000. In 2020, the group overtook the US’s Black population to become the country’s second-largest ethnic voting bloc. 

Harris will be quizzed on Thursday by Latino voters at a Univision town hall event in Las Vegas, Nevada — a state where Latinos account for 22 per cent of the electorate — before holding a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where they make up 25 per cent of the vote.

Her push comes as Democrats try to arrest a slide in Latino support over the past decade driven, say pollsters, by a lack of faith in the party leadership, economic concerns, and disillusionment with Democrats’ stances on social issues.

Barack Obama won 71 per cent of the Latino vote in 2012, according to Pew, but this fell to 65 per cent for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 59 per cent for Joe Biden in 2020.

In September, a poll from NBC News/Telemundo said Harris’s support among Latinos was 54 per cent. Further losses could prove decisive in swing states that may be decided by small margins.

Democrats on the ground said they were confident that efforts to engage and motivate voters would prove effective on November 5. 

“I have never seen a more organised, focused and co-ordinated effort [than] what the Harris campaign is doing in terms of reaching out to Latino voters,” said Matt Barreto, a California-based Democratic pollster advising the Harris campaign.

“I think people are going to be surprised on election night when they see a very strong number in the 60s with Kamala Harris [among Latino voters].”

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuadorean-American former congresswoman in Florida running for the US Senate, blamed “disinformation” from the Trump campaign for Democrats’ lacklustre polling numbers, and encouraged her colleagues to engage more with Spanish-speaking voters.

Mark Jones, chair in Latin American studies at Rice University, said Harris had to walk a fine line between wooing Latino voters in the south and those in the Midwest, especially on immigration, considered an easy target for Trump.

“The difficulty for Harris is she has to avoid any sort of messaging to the Latino community that could be counterproductive among white working- class voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,” he said.

Trump will make his own pitch to Latino voters in Nevada this weekend with a roundtable for small business owners and union workers in Henderson, Nevada, outside Las Vegas. On Sunday he will hold a rally in Arizona’s Prescott Valley, a town north of Phoenix.

The former president will also participate in a separate Univision town hall in Florida next week, after a taping originally scheduled for this week was delayed due to Hurricane Milton.

Republicans say Trump’s gains among Latino voters will last.

“It is pretty clear that President Trump has locked in the additional support he received from Hispanics when we compare 2016 to 2020,” said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from Florida. “Democrats are going to have to look for other voters to make up the difference.”