Introduction of a single ‘worker’ status: What can farm employers expect?

Ben Stepney recently wrote a piece for South East Farmer. 

A stable workforce with identifiable roles and responsibilities is crucial for farm employers in such a labour heavy industry.  Regular employees and casual workers together make up a third of the agricultural workforce, the remainder consisting of farmers, business partners, directors and spouses.

An individual’s status is currently separated into three categories (employee, worker and self-employed) each of which are afforded differing levels of employment rights. Generally speaking ‘workers’ includes zero hours or casual staff.  They do not have protection from unfair dismissal or redundancy rights, which reflects the casual nature of their engagement.

The Labour Government plans to introduce a new regime where individuals are either workers or self employed.  Under Labour’s plans, individuals categorised under the new worker status will be entitled to full employment rights including holiday pay, redundancy rights and protection from unfair dismissal.

Combined with the Government’s proposal to ban ‘exploitative’ zero hour contracts and make protection from unfair dismissal a day one right, a large proportion of farm staff will gain new employment rights. This will increase the costs of taking people on and make it more difficult to let people go, as the flexibility to make quick changes to the workforce will be removed.

We recommend that employers review the make up of their workforce and assess how many staff may fall under the new worker status.  Employers can then consider how best to plan ahead for the potential changes and the need to comply with workers’ new statutory entitlements.

Given the seasonal nature of the industry, employers will want to retain flexibility to hire and let people go according to the demands of the business.  This may lead to an increased use of agency workers to avoid farmers being the employer and so liable for any unfair dismissal claims.

The proposal to create a single worker status will require further consultation and is not part of Labour’s plan to legislate within the first 100 days in government.  However, given the proposal, agricultural employers should stay alert to any updates regarding the proposal and consider how your workforce may need restructuring in the future to retain the flexibility that currently comes with engaging workers in contrast to employees.