NEW flexible working laws which came into effect at the weekend could spark the most significant change in the world of work since the Industrial Revolution.

New rights mean that parents of children under the age of six, and disabled children under 18, will be able to ask their employers to seriously consider requests to work flexibly so they can juggle home and work lives.

Fathers will have the right to two weeks' paid paternity leave, maternity pay will increase and parents who adopt will get new rights covering pay and leave.

The government believes flexible working will spread across British industry and will help boost productivity. But some business leaders said the new law would damage firms and cause resentment among workers with no young children.

The Work-Life Balance Trust, which campaigns for flexible working, said that if only ten per cent of parents with young or disabled children exercised the new right, employers would have to respond to 360,000 requests.

Group president Shirley Conran said April 6 would go down in history as the day that set off a chain of events that finally toppled the UK's long hours culture.

But she warned that few employers were ready for the "flood" of requests expected to be sparked by the new law.

The TUC said young workers would also benefit thanks to introduction of a European directive which means that most 16 and 17-year-olds will not be able to work more than eight hours as day or 40 hours a week.

TUC general secretary-elect Brendan Barber said: "There is something for almost everyone this weekend, with working parents and parents-to-be standing to benefit the most."

However, Ruth Lea, head of policy at the Institute of Directors, warned: "The extensions to family-friendly policies may seem progressive but they will hurt businesses, cause resentment in the workplace and are redolent of discredited 1970s feminist ideology."