Great Britain: towards a single ‘worker’ status?

A Status of Workers Bill aimed at simplifying the status of workers is currently being examined by the House of Commons, after passing through the House of Lords at the end of January. Sponsored by labour law expert, Lord John Hendy (Labour), this Status of Workers Bill remakes provision for the status of workers to be reduced from the current three, being employee (with the broadest rights), worker (with basic rights) and self-employed (no specific rights) to just two, namely worker and self-employed. With this law, any person working for somebody else would have the same rights (including paid leave, sick leave, maternity leave, etc.). “The rights that Parliament has decided employees should have, in my view, ought to be available to anybody working for somebody else and not conducting their own business”, explained Lord Hendy. According to supporters of this text, in addition to improving the rights of thousands of workers, this clarification will make it possible to reduce the number of disputes over status, particularly in the gig economy (c.f. article No.12369). However, it is far from certain that the currently Conservative majority Parliament will support this reform. “The government are not convinced that the Bill is the right solution to give greater protection to those in insecure work”, said Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.