Business community urges Executive to pause plans for employment legislation
A coalition of over 20 business groups in Northern Ireland has collectively called on the NI Executive not to rush through wide-ranging and complex employment rights legislation with the time remaining in this Assembly mandate.
The Good Jobs Employment Rights Bill has been anticipated for some time, with the Department for the Economy introducing a suite of proposals approximately two years ago.
A revised Bill was expected to be published within the first part of this year, however it has still not emerged. As a result, the business community across Northern Ireland is now deeply concerned it will be published in the final months of this Assembly mandate.
As Head of the Federation of Small Businesses NI, Roger Pollen told NR, the reality is few employers are aware of the proposals of the Good Jobs Bill in outline, let alone in detail.
Some of the key areas of concern centre around proposals to lower the threshold for trade union recognition from 21 to 10 employees; and new union access measures, which will bring administrative complexity and cost, particularly for SMEs and family-owned firms.
Additionally, the Bill will require a mix of primary legislation and secondary legislation to implement all 50 policy measures and it is unclear how many statutory instruments will be required at this stage.
“The business community is deeply concerned that attempts will be made to force it through with little effective scrutiny and certainly with little exploration of the potential intended and unintended consequences,” said Mr Pollen.
“This matters, not least as the recent actions of Westminster have repeatedly driven up the cost of employing people, with a worrying contraction in graduate jobs offers perhaps being the harbinger of worse things to come.”
UNPRECEDENTED INTERVENTION
This week, more than 20 business organisations came together with an almost unprecedented intervention, writing to Economy Minister Dr Caoimhe Archibald and the wider Executive. Signatories included FSB NI; CBI Northern Ireland; Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce; the Ulster Farmers’ Union; NIFDA and Employers’ Federation for Northern Ireland.
Whilst acknowledging that some concerns have been listened to, the coalition is warning that the scope, pace and timing of the Good Jobs Employment Rights legislation come at a time of unprecedented pressures for all business across Northern Ireland.
Following ongoing engagement with members, the coalition had previously suggested breaking the proposals into smaller, more manageable Bills, allowing for proper scrutiny and targeted reform. However, they now believe that the remaining time in this mandate is insufficient to deliver due and proper scrutiny of some of the most significant proposed changes to employment law in NI in decades, which currently incorporates at least 50 policy measures.
“The breadth of the Bill and the limited time remaining in the mandate risk repeating the legislative pressures seen in the previous Assembly term, when scrutiny was severely compressed and widely regarded as inadequate,” added Roger Pollen.
The letter comes as one element of the recent Employment Rights Act 2025 in Westminster came into force this month, namely the changes to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), which does not require approval from Stormont and is applicable to all parts of the UK.
SSP is now payable from the first full day of sickness absence and is available to all eligible employees regardless of their earnings, with the Lower Earnings Limit having been removed, and the business bearing the cost, not government.
