From the Victorian Era to the 21st century the rights of labour have been at the forefront of social policy. Employee no longer means servant. Employment protection has the force of law.

But – yes, there is always a but – the Con-Dem Government don’t much like employment protection. It gets in the way of economic growth. Getting the economy moving is more important. Employees need to knuckle down, stop whinging about health and safety, forget security of employment, stop fighting employers over equal pay, pensions, employment rights.

Cameron wants to ditch unfair dismissal claims by employees working in micro-businesses. In essence, micro businesses employ fewer than 10 people, which covers about 90% of all UK businesses.

The originator of this idea is Adrian Beecroft.

I know very little about this man. Many good causes may benefit from this rich man’s generosity. Yes? One, notable beneficiary, is the Tory party. £530,000 according to the Independent. Why would anyone pay so much to a political party unless it was in return for influence?

Cameron, being a man of the rich-people, appears to have endorsed Adrian Beecroft’s radical idea to remove the shackles from employers.

Sadly for Cameron, he may not get his way on this policy. Even the not-so-liberal-anymore Lib Dems don’t like it.

However, a policy Cameron is steamrolling into law, is lengthening the qualifying period for bringing unfair dismissal claims.

At present this is one year. The Con Dems are changing it to two years.

An increase of 44% in Employment Tribunals in the last two years is the Con-Dems justification.

Now, we live in a society that teaches the need for evidence based decisions. Fairness, meritocracy, respect for all.

This being the case let’s take a butchers at some numbers issued by the Ministry of Justice.

Unfair Dismissal cases issued in ETs: 2008/9 – 52,700; 2009/10 – 57,400; 2010/11 – 47,900.

That’s odd! Unless my reading has gone awry, claims are down! Yes, down! So how can the Con Dems blame ETs for holding back small businesses?

The answer is this: Working Time Directive disputes: 2008/9 – 24,000; 2009/10 – 95,000; 2010/11 – 114,100. And: Unauthorised Deductions of Wages disputes: 2008/9 – 33,800; 2009/10 – 75,500; 2010/11 – 71,300. These two kinds of disputes account almost entirely for the increase in ET claims.

Not for the first time, the politicians in power are shooting the wrong target.

If the Con Dems want to manage ETs better, they need to make the Working Time Directive work for employers, and they need to stop employers withholding contractual benefits. Simples!

John Holtom

A version of this article will appear in Business Monthly published by Johnston Press, and in Community magazine.

The image use to accompany this post is borrowed from sodahead.com (here is a link to the page I’ve borrowed it from here.

Article posted on Thursday, December, 1st, 2011 at 2:35 pm

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