Government dismisses claims that workers could have ‘right’ to four-day work week

Rumours have been swirling around a potential change to UK employment rights – but Labour government has denied that employees could soon be able to request a four-day week from their first day.

Currently, employees can request flexible hours as soon as they start at a company but employers are not legally obliged to agree.

Today, education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith dismissed new reports which suggested businesses could be forced to accept employees’ demands for a four-day week.

She told LBC radio: ‘We think that flexible working is actually good for productivity.

‘So the four-day week that I know is on the front of quite a lot of newspapers today, what we’re actually talking about there is the type of flexible working that enables you to use compressed hours.’

The Labour government has said it wants to ensure employers have to offer flexible hours from day one, except where it is ‘not reasonably feasible.’

With the suggested four-day work week mentioned in these plans, employees would be required to work their full hours to get their full pay – but could compress the working time into an overall shorter working week.

A spokesperson at the Department for Business and Trade told the BBC the plan was to ‘increase productivity’ and help get more people ‘back into work’.

Rishi Sunak’s government issued guidance for the proposed four-day work week in 2022, saying they did not support it and it did not deliver taxpayer value for money.

Today, a Whitehall spokesperson has confirmed a right to request a four-day work week is not in the works: ‘We have no plans to impose a four-day working week on employers or employees.

‘Any changes to employment legislation will be consulted on, working in partnership with business.

‘Our Make Work Pay plan is designed around increasing productivity and creating the right conditions for businesses to support sustained economic growth. Many employers already provide good, family-friendly conditions for their workers because they know that doing so improves morale and retention.

‘We are working in close partnership with business and civil society to find the balance between improving workers’ rights while supporting the brilliant businesses that pay people’s wages.’

Do you have thoughts on what a four-day work week could look like for UK employees? Reach out to sarah.hooper@metro.co.uk

Paul Kelly, Head of the Employment Team at Blacks Solicitors told Metro.co.uk: ‘It is being reported that Labour proposes to give full-time employees the right to ‘demand’ a four-day working week.

‘At present, employees already have the right to request compressed hours from the first day of their employment under existing flexible working legislation; therefore, these proposals (assuming that ‘demand’ really means ‘request’!) offer nothing new. 

‘However, currently employers can refuse such a request based on eight very broad business grounds and there is very little in the way of recourse for employees who have their request refused.

‘Therefore, any change in the law is likely to focus on punishing employers who do not permit a request for compressed hours without good reason.’

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