'Charter' to roll back employment laws

Monday, 10 January 2011 12:00 AM

By Alex Stevenson

Measures deterring employers from hiring their employees are to be scrapped, it has emerged.

The rebalancing of the relationship between employers and their bosses contained in the 'employers' charter' being prepared by David Cameron will make it much easier for new workers to be dismissed.

Former staff will have to pay a fee to bring forward unfair dismissal claims - and will only be able to do so at all if they have worked for their company for two years, the Telegraph reported.

These measures are intended to reduce the number of 'vexatious claims' brought against company bosses.

The length of time covered by statutory sick pay will be reduced. Some small companies may be excluded from some laws altogether.

"The thrust of the initiative is that to persuade companies to hire people we need to make it easier to fire those workers who aren't up to the job, so there is less risk in taking on new people," a Whitehall source told the newspaper.

The shift in approach comes as the prime minister hosts business leaders in Downing Street for talks on creating jobs.

Mr Cameron wants to deliver "thousands of new jobs" in Britain and claims 300,000 private sector jobs have been created in the last six months alone.

Advisers say similar reforms of the 1980s succeeded in persuading the private sector to create more jobs, but unions were quick to oppose the proposed plans.

"Instead of a focus on the employment tribunal process, ministers' time would be better spent looking at why so many companies, especially small employers, have such poor employment practices," TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said.

"The government should stand firm in the face of the intense employer lobbying seen in recent weeks and leave employment tribunals to continue holding rogue employers to account and delivering justice for all workers who have been discriminated against or treated unfairly."

Many of the figures put forward in the tribunals argument were misleading, the TUC claimed. It said the 'vast majority' of the 236,000 cases taken in 2010 were multiple claims covering large groups of workers.

Tags: