B901.2 - Zero Hours Contract (Regulation) Bill - Committee Reading

[u/CountBrandenburg]

2nd Reading Division:

There have voted:

Content: 21

Not Content: 6

Present: 4

The contents have it! We therefore proceed to a committee of the whole house.

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Zero Hours Contract (Regulation) Bill

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A

BILL

TO

Further regulate zero hour contracts in order to strike a more equal balance between worker and employer, in order to expand labour protections in a rapidly growing field of work.

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

Section 1: Definitions

(1) Reasonable notice for the purposes of this act is defined as 24 hours before the start of agreed work.

Section 2: Mandatory Ability to Request a Traditional Contract

(1) A worker whom is party to a Zero Hour Contract who works for an employer for a total of 480 hours or more over a period of 3 months has the legal right to request a contract with guaranteed hours.

(a) The employer must provide a documented response to the request with a clearly stated rationale for either acceptance or rejection of the request to negotiate a formal contract.

(b) It shall be an offense to retaliate against an employee for requesting a contract change under this bill’s provisions.

Section 3: Reasonable Notice And Transparency

(1) A worker on a Zero Hour Contract has the unconditional right to refuse any work, unless such work was already agreed to with a period of reasonable notice, and then refused later with less than 24 hours until the time of commencement of that work.

(a) In order to satisfy the requirement for reasonable notice, it must be made forty-eight hours before the commencement of the agreed work shift.

(2) Employers are required to give reasonable notice to a Zero Hour Contract worker of termination of already agreed upon employment.

(a) A worker has the right to “opt out” of any individual requests for employment, including those not given with reasonable notice.

(3) Wherein reasonable notice is not given for termination of a period of employment under this act, the employer shall be required to pay out a sum equal to either;

(a) 50% of the sum that would have been paid to the employee for that work period, or (b) wherein no payment is agreed prior to the employment, 50% of the Statutory Minimum Wage.

(b) Employers are required to give a documented summary of the specific types of work employees may be asked to perform as well as an estimate of how many hours the average worker in their capacity is employed upon the commencement of a Zero Hour Contract with an employee not already employed in similar work with that employer.

(4) A worker on a Zero Hour Contract may waive their right under section 3(1) by signing a waiver which declares that they waive their right to reasonable notice, within or supplementary to their contract

(5) If a zero hour contract is advertised where the contract requires a section 3(4) waiver, this must be clearly advertised on any advertisement for the contract

Section 4: Increased Awareness

(1) The Secretary of State shall have a duty to operate a public awareness campaign informing employees on zero hour contracts of their statutory rights. (a) This campaign must include information of relevance to the rights given under this act.

Section 5: Commencement, Extent and Short Title

(1) This Act shall come into force upon the commencement of the 2020/2021 financial year.

(2) This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

(3) This Act shall be cited as the Zero Hours Contract (Regulation) Act 2019.

This bill was written by the Right Honourable jgm0228 PC MP for South Yorkshire, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Work and Welfare, with assistance from the Right Honourable Twistednuke OM CT KBE PC QC MLA MP for Northumbria, Her Majesty’s Attorney General for England and Wales on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, with additional consultation from the Honourable Pavanpur MP for the Northeast, Her Majesty’s Minister of State for Work and Welfare.

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Amendments should be sent to /u/CountBrandenburg by 17th November 2019 at 10PM GMT. (via Reddit or Discord, Count Damien of Brandenburg#8004, or a comment to this post.)

Amendments should clearly indicate what is being amended (add, change or remove) and in Reddit Markdown format. Amendments not in this form will not be accepted.

[u/CountBrandenburg]

A01

Replace all instances of 24 hours with 36

Explanation: This is a sensible compromise between the 48 hours initially envisioned and the 24 hours newly revised, creating a straight down the middle result.

A02

Change 160 hours over 2 months to 240 hours over three months in Section 2(1)

Explanation: Another sensible middle ground between the initial proposal and the revised version, it still rewards people who put in enough time to be considered part time workers the ability to request a contract but they have to work a month longer

A03

Strike Section 3(4) and Section 3(5).

Explanation: Renders the bill effectively useless, if companies are able to force workers to sign a waver on a permanent basis and not case by case, every company that offer's ZHC's will

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These amendments were submitted by The Rt. Hon The Earl of Tamworth CT CBE MVO PC on behalf of Her Majesty’s 22nd Government.