The Government is considering introducing legislation which will make it harder for employees working in small business to pursue claims of unfair dismissal. It has been proposed that firms with fewer than ten employees should be able to sack staff without facing the risk of an industrial tribunal. The consultation period on planned redundancies may be reduced from 90 to 30 days, and it has also been suggested that employers should be able to have ‘protected conversations’ about poor performance with employees which could not then be used as evidence in any industrial tribunal.
Whatever case might be made for such changes it seems hard to accept Vince Cable’s assertion that the proposals would not erode workers’ rights. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB unions, has spoken out against this move:
“These changes will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of workers to bring cases of victimisation, unfairness and bullying at work.
“This will just sweep abuse under the carpet.”
It is also being suggested that employees should have to pay a deposit to tribunals before they can lodge an appeal against unfair dismissal.
I found this statement from the CBI interesting:
“Proposals to introduce the protected conversations we have called for will allow employers and employees to have frank discussions about future plans, without fear of ending up in a tribunal.
“Businesses also want to see quick action to reduce the collective redundancy period to minimise uncertainty for staff and employers, and a review of the implementation of the Agency Workers’ Directive.
It manages to imply that employees are being inhibited from having frank discussions for fear of a tribunal, and that a decrease in the collective redundancy period will, similarly, somehow be a positive change for employees as well as employers.
Here is an interesting, pragmatic critique of the proposed changes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development:
… the increase in the unfair dismissal qualification period from one year to two years is a poor policy call. There is no evidence that it will have any significant impact on reducing the number of employment tribunal claims or support the labour market in anyway. Both these measures risk making excuses for poor managers, who will cost firms far more in the form of demotivated, unproductive workers than they will in tribunals.
“Failings in management and leadership that hit UK productivity and leave us lagging our international competitors are a far greater brake on growth than UK employment law, and the legally fraught idea of creating notionally ‘protected’ conversations and increasing to two years the period in which employees are not covered by unfair dismissal law, risk making a bad problem worse.”
The AWL objects more robustly:
The Government is working on the “never waste a crisis” philosophy. It thinks that now, when many workers find it hard to look beyond keeping their jobs and getting by, is a good time to bring in changes which will stick during any subsequent economic recovery.
