Executive launches employment rights overhaul
On 28 April 2025, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald MLA announced what has been described as the “most substantial overhaul of Northern Ireland’s employment legislation in over two decades”.
The Good Jobs Employment Rights Bill, a centrepiece of the Department for the Economy’s wider Good Jobs agenda, is designed to modernise the employment law framework with a focus on enhancing job quality and ensuring fairness across the labour market.
The proposed legislation is structured around four thematic pillars: terms of employment; pay and benefits; voice and representation; and work-life balance. It reflects the conclusions of a public consultation conducted in 2024, which received 192 responses from individuals and stakeholder organisations, including employer bodies, trade unions, and civil society groups.
The Bill’s principal proposals reflect the Department’s aim to strike a balance between enhancing protections for workers and supporting business productivity and flexibility.
Policy context
The Employment Rights Bill aligns with the Executive’s Programme for Government objective to increase the number of ‘Good Jobs’ – defined by the Department as secure, adequately remunerated roles which support health, wellbeing, and economic participation. The initiative sits within the Department’s broader ‘economic vision’, based on four objectives: increasing Good Jobs, raising productivity, decarbonising the economy, and driving regional balance.
The legislative proposals are designed to complement efforts to promote labour market participation and reduce in-work poverty. They also aim to create a more level playing field for employers by setting minimum standards and reducing incentives for exploitative employment practices.
Theme A: Terms of employment
This theme targets employment stability and clarity, particularly for workers in atypical arrangements.
The Department intends to curtail the use of exploitative zero-hours and low-hours contracts. Workers on such contracts who consistently work more hours than stipulated will be entitled to request a ‘banded hours’ contract, reflecting their actual working pattern. This right will be subject to a qualifying period, expected to be 26 weeks, with limited grounds for employer refusal.
Additional measures include a right to reasonable notice of shifts and compensation for cancelled shifts. Employers will also be prohibited from including exclusivity clauses in zero or low-hours contracts unless the worker earns above the lower earnings limit.
The Department seeks to address the practice of ‘fire and rehire’, where an employee is dismissed and rehired on inferior terms. Legislation will make it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing such changes, except where the employer is in immediate financial distress.
The right to a written statement of employment particulars will be extended to all workers, not just employees, from day one. These statements must also include expanded information, such as trade union rights.
The Department plans to abolish ‘pay between assignment’ contracts for agency workers, closing a loophole allowing pay disparities with permanent staff. Recruitment agencies will be required to provide Key Information Documents outlining terms in a standardised format.
The Employment Agency Inspectorate (EAI) will receive enhanced enforcement powers, including Labour Market Enforcement Undertakings and Orders, and greater information-sharing with regulators.
Theme B: Pay and benefits
The second theme focuses on decent earnings and pay transparency.
The Department will legislate to ensure that tips, gratuities, and service charges are passed on to workers in full, excluding lawful deductions. Employers must maintain records of distribution and provide access upon request. A statutory code of practice will support this.
Payslip regulations will be reformed to give all workers the right to an itemised pay statement. Where pay varies, hours worked must be included.
Holiday pay for irregular-hours workers will be calculated over a 52-week reference period, replacing the current 12-week system. This change mirrors reforms introduced in Britain in 2020 and aims to ensure fairer averages for seasonal and casual workers.
A statutory code of practice will be developed to support the ‘right to disconnect’, addressing the pressures of digital availability.
Theme C: Voice and representation
This theme introduces measures to strengthen workplace democracy and trade union engagement.
Trade unions will gain a statutory right to access workplaces, including digital access, under reasonable conditions. This supports recruitment and engagement.
To enable broader union recognition, the employee threshold for formal recognition requests will be lowered from 21 to 10. The Department will also explore extending collective sectoral bargaining beyond the public and agricultural sectors.
E-balloting will be permitted for industrial action ballots, reducing reliance on postal voting.
The 12-week limit on unfair dismissal protection during official industrial action will be removed. Existing limitations for unofficial action will remain.
To support constructive industrial relations, a code of practice will outline expected behaviours in workplace negotiations. Information and Consultation of Employers (ICE) Regulations will be amended to cover smaller workplaces. The threshold for ICE agreement requests will fall from 10 per cent to 2 per cent of employees, with the minimum number lowered from 15 to 10.
Theme D: Work-life balance
Several enhancements to family-friendly employment rights are proposed.
The right to request flexible working will become a day-one entitlement. Employees may make two requests per year and will not need to explain the impact on their employer. Employers must show they acted reasonably in handling requests.
Unpaid carer’s leave will be introduced, entitling eligible employees to one week per year. Powers will also be taken to legislate for paid leave, subject to future analysis.
Parents of babies admitted to neonatal care within 28 days of birth will be entitled to one week of leave for each week of hospitalisation, up to 12 weeks. This leave will be available from day one, though pay eligibility will depend on service and earnings.
Redundancy protections will be extended to 18 months from birth or adoption for those on maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave. Pregnancy notification will trigger immediate protection.
Paternity leave will be enhanced. It may be taken as two one-week blocks or a single two-week block, anytime in the 52 weeks following birth or adoption. The notice period will be reduced to 28 days, and paternity leave will become a day-one right.
Implementation
The Department aims to introduce the Good Jobs Employment Rights Bill to the Assembly in 2026 and secure passage before the current mandate ends in early 2027. Measures will be phased in, with consultations on secondary legislation and time for employer and worker adjustment.
The Department will work with the Labour Relations Agency and stakeholders to produce supporting guidance and non-statutory codes of practice.
