Together with consumer affairs and competition, my secretariat was recently entrusted with industrial and employment relations. It is a challenging area that needs our full attention. Hard work in this area can only bring satisfaction and improvement in the quality of life of employees and their families.

One of the main challenges in this sector is the removal of all forms of discrimination against part-time workers and to facilitate the development of part-time work, in line with the part-time employees regulations, based on the EU part time directive. The directive’s main provisions state that part-time employees are not to be treated in any way less favourably than comparable full-time employees only because of the fact that they work on a part-time basis.

Initially the right to receive pro rata entitlements, such as vacation leave and sick leave, was limited to employees in principal employment, that is, those who pay National Insurance contributions, and who worked 20 hours or more per week. Amendments were made over the years to gradually extend the protection provided by the regulations to all employees in principal employment.

This was in keeping with government’s policy of ensuring that part-timers are treated in the same way as full-timers, keeping in mind that part-time work is often resorted to as either a re-entry into the labour market or as a conscious choice to re-adjust working hours due to family demands.

However, part-time employees in secondary employment were not entitled to such rights. One could argue that such part-time employment was treated less favourably when compared with full-timers or indeed other part-timers in primary employment.

There was also evidence that some employers were employing persons as part-timers in different companies and distributing the hours of an equivalent full-time worker – and in some cases more hours – over two or three ‘employments’ to avoid having to grant pro rata entitlements on the second or third employment, instead of employing an employee as a full-timer and granting him or her the full benefits at law.

It was felt that this lacuna in the law had to be addressed. Now, by virtue of the amendments, all part-timers have been granted the same rights and a right to the same pro rata entitlements, irrespective of the number of hours worked or whether the employment is primary or secondary. Thus all employees will have the same core of benefits in respect of each employment they choose to take.

Conscious of the impact that these regulations will have on employers, Government has decided to gradually phase in the entry into force of these regulations. Employees employed on or after the date of entry into force of the Regulations, which was on 12 March 2010, benefit immediately from this amendment. In the case of employees who were engaged and were still in employment before the date of entry into force of the regulations, the Regulations will start to apply on the 12 September 2010.

Chris Said is Parliamentary Secretary in the OPM