COMMENT: Michael Wheeler
MP for Worsley and Eccles
18 January 2026
As a trade unionist who represented low-paid, insecure workers for 16 years, I saw what zero and short hours contracts do to families – childcare thrown into chaos, last-minute shifts forced on people, and pay that’s impossible to predict. That’s why I’m fighting for everyone to have the right to a Guaranteed Hours Contract.
Everyone should have the right to a contract that reflects the hours they actually work, flexibility shouldn’t just work in the employer’s favour. Labour’s Employment Rights Act could do just that – if we keep pushing to make sure the government gets this right.
It’s simple really. Knowing what hours you’re going to work each week means you’re able to plan your finances, your childcare – your life. But in the UK, there are more than one million people on a zero hours contract, and so many more working extra shifts that they depend on far beyond their contracted hours.
The new Employment Rights Act lays the groundwork. Now we need to make sure that the government gets the implementation right – that’s the real detail, the detail that will decide whether this right is simply good or truly revolutionary.
There are still big questions that need to be answered. Will everyone will get this new right as the Manifesto promised? Or might bad bosses try and limit the right to only those on shorter-hours contracts?
Limiting it to people on low hours could cause more problems than it solves. Worst case scenario, they get allocated fewer shifts, as employers game the system, inadvertently making the situation worse. And there’s other key decisions that could make or break this new right as well.
Bad employers will be looking for any loophole or opportunity to help them get round this new right, so we need to make sure every bit of it is watertight.
Now that the Employment Rights Act has passed, there’s a risk people think ‘job done’. But we need to be laser-focused. Because you know who else will be laser-focused on it? Bad bosses, and their Tory and Reform friends in Parliament, who have shown time and time again that they don’t want working people to have this transformative new right. They’ll be working night and day to weaken and undermine this right at the implementation stage.
So Helen, add you name to keep the pressure on, show the government that you want the new right to a Guaranteed Hours contract to be implemented properly, and send the Tories and Reform packing. All we’re asking is that workers have a contract that reflects the real hours they regularly work – because there’s no security at work when your hours and pay are at the whim of your boss.
Together, we can do this – add your name now.