Time to abolish employment law rights that are bad for UK plc?
The new mantra of many politicians is “social responsibility”. Great. No doubt that will make for a more caring society.
Social responsibility can only be a good thing – but will it make for a happy and successful UK? That depends, I guess, on what makes UK plc and each of us feel happy and successful.
Call me old fashioned but I think that the success of UK plc and the happiness and success of its people are inextricably linked to the self worth, work and the wealth of its people.
And so to the point of this posting: It’s entrepreneurial employers that create and sustain jobs and income for the great majority. Employment laws that give aggrieved employees the right to claim huge compensation from employers might be just redemption in the eyes of the aggrieved employee – but shouldn’t we consider the bigger picture?
Compensation (if you are not protected by Ellis Whittam!) paid by an employer to the aggrieved employee comes straight off the bottom line – it can reduce competitiveness or is taken out of the R&D budget or creates wider job insecurity. Sometimes all three!
Sure, as a responsible society we need a set of basic laws/rights that guarantee the safety, dignity and minimum wage for all workers. But I suspect that I speak for a silent majority of employers when I say that silly amounts of compensation awarded to a sacked employee, particularly against a small employer, are bad for business, can put an entire business at risk and are bad for UK plc.
Back to that catchy mantra of modern politicians, “social responsibility”. I wonder where Mr Cameron and his socially responsible Conservatives stand on this? I’m sure that thousands of entrepreneurial employers would like to know. So, come on David, come out and tell us! Have your Conservatives turned a sharp left or do you recognise that hundreds of fluffy employment protection rights are bad for UK plc? (I’ll copy this posting to his website and let’s see if we get a reply!)
To cut to the chase - should an employee whom an entrepreneurial (job and wealth creating) employer deems to be wrong for the job have any right of comeback if he/she is sacked? Besides, if the economy is booming the sacked worker will find a new job quickly (if he/she really wants to). Are the feelings and the personal hardship suffered by an individual employee more important than the success and happiness of UK plc? It’s a tough call. What do you think?
January 17th, 2007 at 11:22 am
What a refreshing view for a lawyer! I have about 75 staff and spend half my time dealing with ridiculous employment law procedures with a minority of staff that don’t give a damn! Don’t get me wrong, I have many brilliant staff - but it makes me angry that I have to jump though loops with those that are lazy or skiving, just to protect the business from claims. If I could just sack the dead wood I’d have more time to spend growing the business.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:27 am
We have just lost an Employment Tribunal claim because we did not follow the right prodecure before we sacked an employee who had 73 days off work in the last 12 months! He had all the ailments in the book - and still managed to play football every weekend when off. It has cost us a five figure sum in legal fees plus five figures in compensation. How can this be right? It is a nonsense.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Rubbish! I’m a trade union steward on a large site. I can tell you that most employers are greedy b*****ds and the Union needs as many employment laws as possible to fight them every step of the way. Its a disgrace that fat cats can earn so much and workers earn so little. Laws that mean the employers make less profit and that give more rights to the people are 100% fair and necessary.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
That 1970 pro union attitude is just why we need less onerous employment laws!!!
January 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
TS Adams - what century are you in mate, are you serious, you have to create wealth to share it. A free econemy with a good social security system and no red tape is the fairest system for everyone
January 19th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I thought the Unions were starting to realise that no businesses equals no unions! Surely Nigel Edwards cannot be so naive to believe that those ‘greedy b****ds’ as he puts it can afford the huge materials increases, wage increases and ridiculous tribunal awards as well as operate a profitable business, its a sure fire way to put the company out of business or out of the UK; either way redundant employees means less union members. There’s a parasitic relationship, Trade Unions need businesses but we are a long way off businesses needing unions.
A forward thinking union may be able to see that with less employment regulations the role of the union would become more important to defend the rights of individuals just as it was able to do in the 80’s, hence greater membership and power for the unions.
Lets not forget who is truly responsible for the closure of so many British manufacturing firms particularly– the unions, for driving wages so high no competitively could prevail and tying companies up in procedural loops delaying its ability to react in good time to economic pressures.
January 19th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Well !!! TS Adams you seem to be a great example of why unions need to take a reality check, It’s obvious to any normal person that such typical union rep antagonistic and agreesive approaches don’t serve to help anybody when two parties are trying to resolve such issues. As smithy says we have moved on from the 70’s when brainless bully boy tatics ruled the day.
As a union member myself I get frustrated when people such as yourself get on your soap box with such rants (especially when you are acting as a voice for people such as me). When dealing with union/employer issues my advice is simple (1) Look at the facts of a case, (2) Look at what the law says and most importantly (3) Look after the people who have a genuine interest in furthering themselves and the company that they work for, not the lazy, scrounging good for nothings who look only to feather their own nests.
Senior Manager of a Large Organisation (& Union member)
January 19th, 2007 at 11:11 am
The laws are there to protect and to give a framework for all parties to work to. As an employer we have to adapt and ensure that we follow the law to the letter in order that fairness is maintained and more importantly to ensure that undue costs are not incurred in the process.
I agree that all too often valuable time and energy is spent sorting personnel isues but would add if this time and energy is used wisely it passes an important message to the remainder of the workforce that measures are in place to sort issues and to dismiss people within the law leading to the employee losing their job to no detriment of the business.
January 19th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Fully agree with 1st comment from anon. I am a commercial director but spend at least half my time dealing with onerous employment law procedure rather than developing the business. It seems as though each week a new employer’s obligation crops up with accompanying red tape. Doesn’t the trade union steward realise that the vast majority of British businesses do not have fat cats? He is using a few multinationals as a measure against many thousands of struggling SMEs where what little profit we can make is swallowed by union and tribunal blame culture tactics. Such little insight is redolent of our labour government policy which has brought many businesses to their knees with its endless red tape and taxation.
Phew - feel better now!
January 19th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
So no view from Mr Cameron yet?!
January 20th, 2007 at 7:47 am
No comment yet, and unlikely to be. He is only taking the top five voted for and answering them. It seems that the board is cleared each Sunday evening, so you may do well to repost this important question first thing on Monday to get maximum chance of more votes. Silly system, but then these people are politicians and so used to our rather stupid system of voting and democracy.
Makes me laugh, because many of these people would get eaten alive if they were to run their own small business!!!
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I would like to highlight the details of the Economic Competitiveness policy group which was set up when David Cameron was elected Leader. The launch details are on this link from our website;
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=127382
The group is looking primarily at the interests of UK plc and their full details are on this website;
http://www.competitivechallenge.com
I would also like to highlight the speech by our Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, at our recent Conference;
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=conference.2006.news.story.page
&obj_id=132597&speeches=1
and George Osborne’s Pre-Budget Report response;
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=134000&s
peeches=1
You may also like to know that the Tax Reform Commission, launched by George Osborne in October 2005, has published its findings recently. The details can be seen on this link from our website;
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=133038
I hope these are of interest and thank you again for writing.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Interesting reply from Conservative HQ - but no surprises that it does not really answer the question “Are too many employment law rigths bad for UK plc”! Anyone thougth about asking Tony Blair for his view? This is a really important point for me as an employer.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
For the latest news and announcements from our Treasury/economy team, please keep an eye on this link from our website;
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.topic.page&topic=ECONOMY
January 29th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Hi Mark, I’ve put this article in ‘Best of the Blogs’ in my ‘Weekly Law Review’ on my blog and in my newsletter. See http://timkevan.blogspot.com/2007/01/barrister-blog-weekly-law-review.html. All v best Tim
January 30th, 2007 at 8:53 am
A brilliant post followed by thoughful comments. But, not one mention (as far as I can see) of the elephant in the room. The EUssr.
January 31st, 2007 at 6:54 am
Long dangerous hours,low hourly rates,exploitation, poverty-have you forgotten what it was like before safeguards-can you not see what it is like in countries with no legal safeguards?
I am sorry but the view is simply niave. Look at the figures and look at the statistics,if employers could be trusted to be fair then there would be no need for these measures but as with everything related to a profit driven organisation it is about keeping the money and exploiting the market. Keeping labour costs down by any means is a legitimate business aim.
Its simple really, if employers could all be trusted then there would be no need for this framework of laws but as the thousands of genuine tribunal claims each year show we cannot and the blog is just an over simplistic headline catching dream
January 31st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
If employers could be trusted….??? Simon, I would argue that it’s the employees who need to show they can be trusted in a lot of cases!! Of course, there are those employers who will exploit their staff but as an HR practitioner I have come across far too many an employee who thinks the world owes him/her a living. I have dealt with tribunal claims from staff who have thieved, had excessive sickness absences, abused other employees… the list goes on. My point is that society today is far too Americanised i.e. it has become a claims culture; people claim even though they damn well know they’re guilty but think they can get compensation because an employer has failed to follow one of the hundreds of ludicrous steps to ensure they dismiss ‘fairly’. The tribunal system, despite its ‘reforms’, still fails to throw out spurious claims resulting in line managers, HR teams, solicitors etc spending time and money defending a claim that shouldn’t have been made in the first place!
Well done Mark for voicing an opinion shared by many - and I’m sure I speak on behalf of quite a few HR colleagues!
January 31st, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Do you genuinely believe that simply by adopting the phrase “UK plc” you fool anyone into thinking that you are promoting any sort of Benthamite principles and appealing to the greater good. Significant numbers of employers still believe that they are philanthropic by providing employment to those who help to line their pockets. I too am a solicitor and see employers and employees alike take the piss to broadly similar degrees.
Because I don’t care whether you live or die I can say what I like without fear of retribution. If you employed me on the other hand you could summarily dismiss me and cause me (perhaps) to lose the home I work hard to provide for my wife and family.
Not my type of “UK plc” I’m afraid.
February 1st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I agree that there should be NO laws at all protecting employees.
What a breath of fresh air. we have had far too much from those Brussels Bureaucrats. There was no Europe poking its nose into our affairs when we had an Empire - i wonder if we would have had an empire with thewm breathing down our necks - trying to standardise the size of the sticks [content deleted by moderator]! Listen Mr Politician we want our England back - an employee doesn’t need laws to protect him unless he has done something wrong.
pregnant employee? sack her!
ill employee? sack him!
[content deleted by moderator]
Concerned of Tunbridge Wells
February 1st, 2007 at 5:32 pm
R1gsby, I fundamentally disagree with your suggestions and comments. It is one thing to suggest that some procedural laws might work against the best interests of UK plc but discrimination of any type, whether on grounds of sex or race or whatever, is absolutely wrong and can not be tolerated. Ellis Whittam and I both disassociate ourselves from your views and in no way condone the same.
February 1st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
At last someone with the guts to say what many people feel - I am sick to death of wasting mine and my teams time dealing with chancers / wasters and lawyers out to make an easy buck. I would rather spend more time focused on making the Company I work for more successful and creating more opportunities for those who want to work.
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:55 am
I feel it would be sensible to ‘rein in’ the employment laws rather than do away with them all together. In particular I refer to the level of protection afforded a pregnant employee. I am fully supportive of her not being unfairly treated; however it does seen to be rather unfair that she is protected to a level that is not available to a lady beyond child bearing age, or has chosen not to have children or any other non-pregnant female. Recently a temp who was five and a half months into her six months temp contract told me she was two weeks pregnant. I was advised not to terminate the contract as I could leave myself open to a discrimination claim. In the latter stages of the contract she had become very unreliable -one excuse after another (a welfare approach can only go so far) and ideally I wished to terminate. I was then left with no choice other than to keep her on - a decision that baffled the other staff in her department - this behaviour was not ordinarily rewarded. Surely a situation that demonstrates that the balance has tipped too far. Sadly common sense does not feature in employment law.
February 3rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Unfortunately, the likes of r1gsby exist in today’s society. As a result, this is the reason why employment legislation is in place and perhaps explains why it has gone too far in favour of employees! I hope to god he’s/she’s not a line manager and if he/she is, good luck to their staff! In response to Karen’s final comment, I think r1gsby’s rant highlights a sad case of a complete lack of common sense (and, it would appear, a complete lack of a human brain). Hence the need for SOME level of protection for employees….
February 5th, 2007 at 7:31 am
What is meant health protection? It is necessary to increase deductions from the budget in free-of-charge medical clinics. WBR LeoP
February 6th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Well, I have to say Mr Ellis is demonstrating a dab hand at entrepreneurial advertising, assailing the system in one breath while offering his services with his next! Unless he is going to change his job on ethical grounds?
I am a Personnel Manager and for some years (during which time I have represented and won two dozen tribunals, on both “sides”) I have noticed how the tribunal system and unfair dismissal laws tend to work to the advantage of two groups alone - (ex) employees with no legitimate claim and lawyers.
Consider the economics of it - if you are an employer who has done no wrong but are facing a tribunal claim, to fight it and win might start of at a cost of around £10,000 in legal fees. Much better then to pay off the claimant for, say, £5,000 and save yourself some costs and a lot of time and hassle - never mind the baseless claim they might be making.
On the other side, if you are a truly aggrieved employee, unfairly hounded out of your livelihood by an arrogant, pernicious employer, you may get a lawyer to represent you on a “no-win, no-fee” basis, but if you do win, you are unlikely to win very much at all. Average tribunal payouts are barely touching £5,000 - some compensation for the loss of your livelihood by foul means. Especially given the stress of making a claim and the subsequent tag of “troublemaker” which blights your future employment.
So the answer?
To me, there should be more screening out at an earlier stage of claims with no real merit; the Government promsied this but did not deliver. But on the other hand, if an employer is found to have unfairly dismissed someone, they should have to pay substantial and punitive costs which might make them take a less cavalier attitude to staff in the future. Employers have plenty of comeback already, to answer Mr Ellis’ bizarre question (doesn’t he know this?), if an employee is unsuitable - there is no protection fo the first twelve months of employment, which should be long enough for any decent employer to work out how good their new recruit is; and after that, they can still dismiss as long as they do so using fairly basic procedures - fair dismissal is always permitted!
Mr Ellis’ blog is badly misguided in attributing the success of the nation to wealth alone - that might be the yardstick used by shareholders, but any survey of people’s motivations (and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) shows security to come far ahead. It is the marginalisation of many people in our so-called enterprise culture today which has provided a breeding ground for everything from crime, drugs and the rise of the BNP. We are no longer a nation at ease with ourselves, and removing this pretty minimal level of protection to people in the workplace (where the utterly overwhelming majority of us are employees) would aggravate further the sense of alienation of some of the most economically vulnerable people in our country.
The system demands reform so that unfair dismissal law is fairly enforced; not thrown to the wolves of aggressive, self-serving, unfettered free market capitalism.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
I am tempted to say I totally agree with Mark Ellis. What I feel is that given the choice between the position now, with all the crazy pro-employee laws we have and the opposite, with none, I would definitely vote for none. UK PLC suffers, and employers, the ones who create the wealth in the country, suffer. And they keep passing more daft employment laws every year.
Being rational about it, what we have to do is to try and persuade a government, some time, to rationalise and rein in the crazy laws. What might work is abolishing the ‘no costs’ rule in Tribunals, as well.
My favourite pet hate - maternity rights etc. It might be easy for Tesco to cover a year’s absence by checkout girls, but it’s impossible if you run a business requiring close relationships with customers, or high skill from employees. 6 months off was one thing, but a year! Plus ‘holiday’! Plus parental leave. Crackers!
February 19th, 2007 at 10:37 am
We are a small local community charity………a group of volunteer directors who have tried over the last 3 years to keep up to date with all the rules and regulations relating to employment law as well as all the rest! We currently employ 5 members of staff and its very difficult to keep up to date with all the rules relating to employment! whilst trying to ensure we keep the project going to ensure that the area benefits.
March 19th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
All these employment laws are breaking the trust down between the employee and employer. You cant speak the truth now in case someone is taking notes with a view to suing you later.
We had an IT guy who attended our site an average of 104 days per year for 7 years. He kept his own records of when he was sick when he was on holiday when he was working so called time lieu.
When I came in to the business (the elderly owner was retiring) I tried to normalise the situation (there had been no contract but the ptevious owner was admament that the It guy should have bene working 5 days per week)and asked him how he saw his position so thate we could create a contract and work together. He refused and went sick.
We carried on paying him - everytime I phoned he said I was harrasing him. This went on for 3 months. We offered him to continue as he was working for 1 more year but after that we would expect him to leave.
He then resigned claiming unfair dismissal.
Went to a tribunal and we lost and was ordered to pay him a whole years salary plus compensation.
He has refused to supply passwords or any documentation or details of any procedures.
At the trubunal he would break down in tears it turned out before he worked for us he had been unemployed for 5 years and before that he had been in and out of jobs, The welfare state and compensation culture is creating people like him - and actually keeping them down though he and his type will never see it.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I find it interesting that all the blame for employment problems are laid at the door of the fat cat bosses.
Yes there are bad bosses but there are also bad employees and bad unions.
I have had union reps threaten to have a site out of strike because we dared to suggest that we would arrange a presentation to advise the employees what their rights were under TUPE. If I was being transferred I would be grateful that the company were going to tell me my rights and even where to go (ACAS,CAB) to get information to verify what they had told me
Yes there is a need for rules but most of the recent legislation has been drafted by someone with Key Stage 1 knowledge of employment law. (for those that don’t know Key Stage 1 is the first level of education in a Primary School)
As for the Tribunals themselves many of those that are on them are a complete waste of space. I attended one tribunal where we sacked some for not wearing safety shoes and he admitted that due to his medical problem we had offered to buy a second pair in a larger size as his feet swelled. It was found that we had not acted reasonably by not buying the shoes for him.
Our view was that if he went to the shop in our time when he did have his medical problem he would get shoes that fitted> Am I missing something or is that not a reasonable answer. Not according to the Tribunals it’s not. It sounds as bad as the judge last week who stop a trial because he didn’t know what a website was.
I am aware of one Tribunal that was so bad that both the employer and employee put in complaints. The only thing they did agree on.
In another case the claim was for failing to consult prior to a TUPE transfer and the Tribunal deemed it necessary for there to be a pre-hearing to establish what the claim was for. I would have thought that failure to consult prior to a TUPE transfer was quite self explanatory.
Bring back common sense
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Yes, employment laws should be scrapped - well almost!
I have yet to meet a boss who gets rid of good staff. In our company we really do all the good stuff to attract and keep good staff. The problem is that we could do a whole lot more for good staff if we were not burdonned with professional loosers. I hate to use such derogatory language but we all know colleagues who think the world owes them a living and if they spent as much time and effort on productive work rather than avoiding it they’d be high flyers themselves.
We have a woman (with a disabilty) who is never late for work, rarely absent and is a hard worker. Last year we had a bit of snow on the ground and a couple of loosers (able bodied) could not get to work because of the snow - yet our woman with a disability passed all their houses on her way to work - arriving on time as usual.
If getting shut of loosers in firms was easier there would not be so many of them as they would have to perform. We could start halting the exodus of businesses to elsewhere in the world and decent hard working folk, UK plc, bosses and unions would have a more productive life.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
If it has taken you more than a year to figure out that someone isn’t right for the job, then shame on you - you need to tighten up your procedures. Employers have ample opportunity to get rid of unsuitable staff within the first 12 months without much fear of being hauled before a tribunal.
Employees (or, rather, ex-employees) don’t have an easy time at tribunal and there are few true cases of injustice against the employer. Employers need to know the correct employment procedures and, if they don’t, there are plenty of advisers out there who will help. There is no excuse for an employer to fall foul of the law. Employment law comes about in response to poor and dubious employment practices. If we start scrapping employment law then where do we stop?
On the subject of “social responsibility” I would say it is NOT simply about making people “happy” - it is about being a good employer, a responsible provider of quality goods and services, and a good neighbour (which includes helping to protect the environment).
January 11th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
As individuals we are too selfish by half. These laws are there to protect the employee and the employer. If these companies just read the procedures they are meant to follow how many of they suits would come to nothing! However as always there is always one that will ruin it for the rest. There are many employers out there that treat there staff with no respect and operate there business like a Victorian Workhouse yes even in Millenium Britain. Please do not think otherwise as I know friends of mine that work in such conditionS for wages that are quite frankly laughable not every employee is a waster and not every employer is a prison warden. How different is a employee that does no work and finds a way to sue there employer when they are sacked for good reason to a mum with one child that drives a 4×4 in an urban area with no consideration for the planet or other drivers…..I will tell you none they both act on selfish reasons and think of no one but themselves and they justify there actions because we live in a society where the community is something that happens somewhere else. I would love to live in a world where people could be trusted to do the right thing but i dont I live in a world where people will walk all over you to get where they are going and while I live in a world where narrowminded people like r1gsby live then these types of laws will always be required.