Part 7: Sunday Working Schedule 5: Sunday working New section 43ZA : Contractual requirements relating to working additional hours on Sundays: objection notices
Paragraph 6 of Schedule 5 inserts a new section 43ZA into the Employment Rights Act 1996. Section 43ZA contains the principal effect of the new right to object to working additional hours on Sundays: it varies the requirements in the contracts of employment of shop workers who exercise this right. Paragraph 5 of the Schedule amends the heading of section 43 in the same Act, to clarify that it relates to the right to opt out of Sunday working altogether whereas section 43ZA relates to the right to object to additional hours.
	Under section 43ZA(1), when a shop worker gives the employer an objection notice, objecting to working additional hours on Sundays, then after the notice period has elapsed:
any contractual obligations on the shop worker to do shop work for additional hours on Sundays become unenforceable; and
any contractual obligations on the employer to offer additional hours of shop work on Sundays likewise become unenforceable.
	Subsection (2) sets the notice period. Just as for the right to opt out of Sunday working, the notice period is one month for a shop worker at a large shop or three months for a shop worker who only ever works at a smaller shop. This notice period may be reduced by section 41D.
	Subsections (3) and (4) enable a shop worker to reverse the effect of an objection notice by giving a further written notice to the employer, to the effect that the shop worker is willing to work additional hours – either on Sundays generally or on a particular Sunday. The shop worker’s contract of employment is then taken to be varied accordingly.
	Subsection (5)(a) clarifies that this section is capable of varying a shop worker’s contract of employment. Subsection (5)(b) has the effect that a shop worker who reverses an objection notice, opting in to working additional hours on Sundays, is nevertheless able to opt out again with a new objection notice.