Political Parties like to play to their own crowds. Pre-conference tasters excite the media, party members and those of us who follow the political world on a regular basis. Some snippets, though, creep below the radar and deserve more comment or analysis – or perhaps downright suspicion.
One such piece was smuggled out into the news in recent days. Under the guise of creating a more ‘business friendly’ culture, George Osborne has suggested a change to the law governing constructive unfair dismissal. This, it’s argued, would make it easier for businesses to hire and fire people and get the economy moving again. This seems like a minor change to a small piece of legislation which won’t have much effect on anyone. But wait. Let’s look at the details. It may surprise you to know that Mr Osborne is not giving us the whole story.
The legislation in question relates to people being sacked. At the moment, an employee has to have been at a company for twelve months before they can take the company to court if they feel they have been unfairly treated. In short, if someone has been working for you for 11 months, you can get rid of them without justification and that employee has no legal rights to sue you. The Conservatives want to extend this. They want the time an employee has to have worked for a company before full legal rights kick in to two years.
What we are NOT talking about here is people being fired for wrong doing; nor are we discussing people who are incompetent; nor are we discussing those who are negligent. We are talking about people who have done everything asked of them and whom companies have chosen to fire without reason. Companies can and should be able to fire those who have broken the rules, seriously messed up or damage the organisation in some other way, no matter how long the person has worked there. But to fire someone for no reason? That is and always should be grossly unfair.
Osborne thinks this will make it easier to hire people. Really? Well, I suppose you can hire someone different every 23 and a half months, presumably at a starting salary, thus scrimping on a few pounds. That is, if you want to be thought of as a rotten employer who does the dirty on their hard working staff. Those who welcome the proposed change should exercise caution – do they really want to be thought of in those terms?
Is this seriously what the Conservatives think of business? That they want legislation to allow them to throw scruples, along with good people’s livelihoods, out of the window? If so, they have a very poor view of those in commerce. After all, there are plenty of encouragements the Government could give to business – a national Insurance holiday for those employing new staff; a months benefit paid to firms taking on long-term unemployed; an export credit guarantee similar to that it provides to the arms trade. Allowing firms to sack people with no good reason and without any comeback is a return to the nasty party Theresa May once described – if, that is, it ever went away.
