News Update: Zero Hours Contract Legislation Comes into Force Today

As reported in the May/June 2015 REC Legal bulletin the government has today brought into force legislation which bans the use of exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts or the requirement for zero hours workers to seek consent to work elsewhere.

This legislation’s definition of a zero hours contract is wide enough to capture the type of contracts which are commonly used for agency workers but this change will specifically impact on members who engage agency workers on employment contracts and contracts of apprenticeship .  For other types of worker contracts, separate recruitment industry legislation already prohibited agencies from preventing agency workers from working elsewhere.

The REC will be amending both the model Regulation 10 AWR (‘Swedish derogation’) and zero hours contracts accordingly.