The Government has today published the Employment Rights Bill, legislation that stems from many years of work from the trade union movement around the New Deal for Working People
As part of that movement, WGGB welcomes legislation that aims to end exploitative employment practices and improve workers’ rights. We also welcome the fact that this bill seeks to strengthen the powers of trade unions and repeal the pernicious anti-strike legislation of the previous government that we have campaigned against.
UK writers work on self-employed contracts and the new protections outlined in this legislation around zero hour contracts and day one employment rights will therefore not apply to them. We understand however that the Government intends to consult further on issues around self-employment and we will be responding to consultations and talking with Ministers in coming days and weeks.
Issues we will be addressing include:
An extension of statutory legal protections on bullying, harassment and discrimination to cover the self-employed – a big issue in the creative industries and for our members.
Definitions around worker status. Any legislation that proposes to alter the current three-tier classification of ‘employee’, ‘worker’ or ‘self-employed’ must not undermine the rights our members currently enjoy – namely the right to receive royalties and other secondary payments under law. These rights are not afforded to those who are not classified as self-employed and these secondary payments are essential to our members’ livelihoods
Our members enjoy other benefits from their self-employed status, including the ability to work on multiple contracts at once, deciding how, when and where they work and often engaging in portfolio careers – for example, combining lecturing or other work alongside their writing career.
In short, any legal alterations to worker status must protect our members’ autonomy and secondary sources of income, as well as afford them statutory rights they are currently excluded from under law around discrimination, bullying and harassment.
In addition to this, we are calling for enhanced rights for freelancers around low pay and no pay, an end to exploitative ‘in perpetuity’ buy out contracts, tax and benefit reform, action to deter late payment of freelancers, a dedicated Freelance Commissioner for creatives, AI licensing that favours the rightsholder and other measures as outlined in our manifesto Putting writers at the heart of the story.
Members who have concerns or questions can contact casework@writersguild.org.uk for support and advice
