About to get much easier for companies to sack folk

[Chim]

So it seems plans are afoot to change the employment law.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18142544

These changes will effectively make it much easier for firms to get rid of workers by brining in the following key changes

An end to a mandatory 90-day consultation period when a company is considering redundancy programmes. Instead it will suggest a standard 30-day period and an emergency five-day period if a firm is in severe distress

A cap on loss-of-earnings compensation for employees who make successful unfair dismissal claims

Reform of the rights that workers are allowed to "carry" to new employers when their companies are the subject of a takeover

Scrapping provisions in the Equality Act which make employers liable for claims from employees for "third-party harassment", such as customers making "sexist" comments to staff in a restaurant

Shifting responsibility for checking foreign workers' eligibility to work in the UK from employers to the Border Agency or the Home Office

As you would expect labour are up in arms and the Lib Dems are moaning into their coffee cups again. Having been heavily involved in large scale redundancies though I can see a lot of merit in these changes, the 90 day consultation period is particularly painful for both employers and employes in a lot of cases. Typically what happens is the company decides that they need to lay off x amount of workers, they then announce the 90 day period for consultation, problem is they do not specify who is going to be laid off at this point, management then spend the next two month flat out in a huddle trying to decide who to pay off and the groups that are up for redundancy are then announced

Unfortunately though they can not just select the bad eggs as you can not pay off people, you can only make roles redundant, so for example if you decide you want to get rid of 3 Analysts in a certain department as the roles are not needed for whatever reason (and you need a bloody good one), every analyst in that department has to go in the pool and you then have to offer voluntary redundancy first. This means that you tend to get stuck with the lazy fker in the corner that sits on facebook all day while the older more studious guy that can collect a big pay off due to many years in the company goes out the door.

During all this though productivity goes through the floor and moral hits rock bottom as everyone in the company is under the threat of losing their job. The whole process is highly complex and the Lawyers are all over it every step of the way as any slight mistake can be very costly, as an exercise it really is hell on earth to go through and its completely mired in red tape, in fact its the reason why there are so many contractors and third party suppliers out there now as its far easier, safer and cheaper for companies not to hire. Take away the complications and you would see this change in my opinion.

So what do you think, good or bad.

Edited by Chim on Monday 21st May 20:22

[Chim]

Countdown said:

B Huey said:

Germany has very employee friendly employment laws, plus high wages. They seem to do OK.

German workers are more productive.

The Germans are also a lot better at mass producing reliable products people actually want to buy, we unfortunately where really st at it.

[Chim]

B Huey said:

Can anyone tell me how many jobs will be created by flushing all workers rights down the toilet?

No one is suggesting that workers rights are "flushed down the toilet" as you put it. the system as it stands at the moment though is god awful and not just from an employer perspective, the red tape and regulation that surrounds the whole process is beyond belief. By removing some of this and allowing employers the capability to scale operations and remove "bad" workers without having to effectively bring your company to a productive stand still for many months at a massive costs during the worst possible time. This can and will lead to employers taking on more workers as they will know that they can operate flexible if things get rough.

These are businesses, businesses exist to make money, they do not exist to employ people. The laws at they stand today mean that these businesses often have to carry these employees all the way to the bitter end and they can not scale to meet demand. No business likes to pay off good workers, they only consider it when its completely necessary. As I said, they exist to make money, they are not here to keep "facebook man" in the corner in a job or to carry a load of employes at huge cost when there is not the work for them to do.

[Chim]

Many posters seem to be focusing on getting rid of bad workers, as much as I agree that legislation needs to loosened to allow this I think the main problem is that businesses can not react quickly to the market conditions and i believe these changes would help that. If a companies order book dries up they are left with having to maintain a workforce that is way in excess of the amount of work available as it can take many many months to get through the redundancy cycle at huge cost at the worst possible time, in a lot of cases the company will end up going to wall and everyone loses their job as they could not react quickly enough.

[Chim]

Gaspode said:

eccles said:

The industry I work in the model seems to be to have a core of permanent employees, if work ramps up dramatically, but is short term, contractors are employed, and let go at the end of the job.

Same here. I've been a contractor since 2006, never been out of work, no concerns about finding work, I enjoy it far more than being a permanent employee. I see freelancing as the ideal solution to the employment flexibility. All the government really needs to do is to figure out a way of encouraging more people to go contracting without taking the piss when it comes to NI/Tax.

Mentioned this in my first post, I was a contractor for many years and it led me to starting my own consultancy firm. From an employer perspective though it is a very expensive way of doing this, it also only really works for those contractors with specialist skills, primarily in IT and small companies can not afford to do this

[Chim]

vonuber said:

Tell you what, given the 60 odd days off sick I had last year, I am glad I work for a fairly reasonable employer and not some of those posting here - I would've been fired straight away under this proposed legislation.

Why, the legislation does not mention or deal with long term illness absence and does not take away any of your current rights in this area.