[Wrigleys Introduction] Before you begin the consultation, it is worth outlining the background to the current ban on exclusivity clauses. Exclusivity clauses are common in employment contracts and essentially say that whilst the individual worker or employee is employed by employer X they cannot work for any other employer. This is largely for two reasons; first to ensure that the individual worker or employee is available to employer X to meet their contractual obligations and secondly to ensure that workers are not exhausting themselves by ‘moonlighting’ for another employer, particularly if the individual is engaged on a full-time basis by employer X.
Primarily because employers wanted to guarantee an individual was available for work, a practice developed whereby employers inserted exclusivity clauses into zero-hours contracts. However, this eventually led to a recognition that many zero-hours workers’ incomes were kept low because their employer offered few, or no, regular hours. Despite these workers often having time to work elsewhere, the exclusivity clauses prevented them from doing so. As a result, the government acted to ban exclusivity clauses in zero-hour contracts because these clauses undermined the supposed benefits of flexible working arrangements and in many cases kept workers on low incomes.
As detailed below, the government is now considering extending the ban on exclusivity clauses further to those with guaranteed contractual hours but whose guaranteed weekly income is below a certain level.
