Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Written evidence submitted by the UK Musicians' Union (REULB52)

MU response to retained EU Law Bill

The UK Musicians' Union was established in 1893 and represents over 32,500 musicians working in all sectors and genres of music. As well as negotiating on behalf of its members with all the major employers in the industry, the MU offers a range of services tailored for the self-employed by providing assistance for professional and student musicians of all ages. More info: theMU.org

We welcome the opportunity to provide written evidence to the Public Bill Committee on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

The areas of concern for the Musicians’ Union include employment rights , GDPR, Health & Safety and Copyright.

 

Employment rights :

TUPE

 

• TUPE is intended to protect employees by allowing them to transfer under their current contractual terms and maintain their existing terms.

• Currently in the UK we enjoy more favourable terms in comparison to the underpinning EU Directive. Whilst the majority of our members are self-employed a significant number are also working in employed situations and would be negatively affected by any weakening of these regulations.

• We would not wish to see TUPE consultation provisions brought in line with collective redundancy consultations (see below).

• Post-transfer ' harmonisation ' is another area where we would not wish to see any reduction in current conditions.

 

Collective Redundancies

• Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (which was the UK implementation of the EU Collective Redundancies Directive), employers currently have to consult for 30 days where between 20-100 redundancies are being made and for 45 days where over 100 redundancies are made.

• We would not wish to see any reduction in the associated consultation periods above or any changes to the trigger point for such consultations.

 

Working Time Regulations

• Many rights fall under the Working Time Regulations including holiday entitlement, rest breaks and working hours . Currently the rights provide a maximum of a 48-hour week (unless opted out by the individual), rest breaks, daily rest breaks and at least 5.6 weeks paid holiday.

• These rights currently apply to both employees and workers.

• We are aware that changes have already been suggested to review holiday entitlement, rest breaks and holiday pay.

• For h oliday entitlement the current UK legislation provides for 5.6 weeks holiday in comparison to the EU's 4 weeks. We would not wish to see any reduction in the current UK situation.

• For Holiday Pay we would not wish to see workers and employees lose the right to carry over holiday entitlement into the next holiday year (if they have been unable to use it due to sickness) or employers revert back to using basic pay only for calculating holiday pay (ignoring other payments such as overtime, commission etc ). This would be likely to discourage some from taking holiday as they could potentially be paid less than if they had worked and were able to increase their wage with renumeration additional to their basic wage.

 

The Agency Worker Regulations 2020

 

• The Agency Worker Regulations provide rights for agency workers for equal access to facilities provided by the hirer, an opportunity to apply for vacancies, equal pay after 12 weeks, equal treatment on holidays and working time and increased pregnancy rights.

• We would wish to see these retained in the UK in their current form.

 

 

Discrimination & Equal Pay

• Many current legally 'protected characteristics' were EU-derived originally. We would hope these would remain untouched given their importance to society.

• We would not wish to see the compensation for discrimination capped (capping compensation occurs in most unfair dismissal claims) as capping compensation for discrimination (such as racial harassment or dismissal for pregnancy) could remove the deterrent effect of uncapped compensation.

Family rights

• Maternity leave - current UK legislation provides for 52 weeks leave , where the first 26 weeks are classed as "ordinary maternity leave" and the last 26 weeks are "additional maternity leave." It is our hope that there will be no reduction to these standards.

GDPR

• We hope there will be no diminution of current UK GDPR Legislation including the more recent elements derived from EU legislation.

 

Health & Safety

• We hope there will be no removal or reduction in the Management Regulations, The Provision and Use of Work Equipme n t Regulations or The Manual Handling Regulations which would lead to less protection for our members and other workers against accidents, injuries and illness in workplaces.

 

Copyright

· We understand the relevant UK legislation includes: The Artist’s Resale Right Regulations 2006, The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 and The Collective Management of Copyright (EU Directive) Regulations 2016.

· Our members derive income via this legislation and any reduction in rights therein could have a significant potential negative impact on this. As such we would hope to see this legislation retained, if not strengthened.

November 2022