Rumours have been swirling around a potential change to UK employment rights – but Labour government has now said that four-day week will not be imposed on companies.
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.’
But when asked whether teachers could take …