Politics Home | Usdaw urges the government not to break Labour’s manifesto commitment on secure guaranteed contracts

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Ministers are currently considering their response to a consultation on the details of the guaranteed hours contract part of the Employment Rights Act, but have already expressed a preference to narrow the right to workers contracted for less than 20 hours – this threshold does not meet Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitment to “everyone”.

The right to a contract that guarantees the hours you normally work is a matter of basic fairness and security. Many of our members are regularly working hours that aren’t guaranteed in their contract, which has a massive impact on their lives. The right has the potential to provide much greater security for millions of low-paid workers and must apply to everyone, up to and including full-time workers. We absolutely cannot have loopholes that make this meaningless.

We need an economy with better jobs and higher living standards, where more people have money to spend, giving a much-needed boost to our high streets. Good employers have nothing to fear from these rights, which will help to prevent them from being undercut by employers who exploit workers on insecure contracts.

A legal right to a guaranteed hours contract will simply require employers to properly plan staffing and shifts in advance. Workers who want a zero-hours or flexible contract will still be able to have one. They will just have a right to more secure hours if they want them.

We don’t accept the scaremongering from those who wrongly claim that decent employment rights will cost jobs. We heard similar arguments when the minimum wage was introduced. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now.

Usdaw’s consultation response includes legal rights to:

• A guaranteed hours contract for all workers with a contract of up to 48 hours, calculated over a 12-week reference period.
• Fair notice of shifts of at least 4 weeks, so that everyone can plan their lives around work.
• Compensation, equivalent to the workers’ actual wage, if shifts are cancelled with less than 7 days’ notice.

Hypothetical illustration of the consequences of the government’s preferred 20-hour threshold loophole:

Jane is contracted to 21 hours a week, Amina 18 hours. Both actually work at least 30 hours every week, providing essential income to help make ends meet, particularly in the cost of living crisis. However, before the law comes into effect, their employer suddenly stops giving extra hours to Amina, to avoid having to put them in her contract, which she wants. The hours are now given to Jane and her colleagues on contracts over 20 hours because they can’t access the new right. If everyone is entitled to a guaranteed hours contract, the employer would have no incentive to treat people differently based on the number of hours they are contracted to work.

Read Usdaw’s full response to the consultation here.

Sign the petition to protect all workers from insecure contracts here.

View the government consultation on ending one-sided flexibility here.

Read Labour’s 2024 manifesto here – Page 5 – zero hours contracts and one-sided flexibility.