Under the current law, in order to be able to claim unfair dismissal an employee must have at least one year’s continuous service with their employer. Up until that point, an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason, and without having to follow a fair procedure, provided that the dismissal is not discriminatory, for example, on the grounds of gender, race or disability.

It was Labour who reduced the threshold to one year’s service after Thatcher increased it to two. Now it seems that the Tories want to raise it again, leaving many thousands without employment rights, who could simply be dismissed on a whim.

What possible justification could there be for these reforms?

The Tories say that the current law is weighted in favour in employees. As an employment rights lawyer, representing trade union members in employment tribunals day in day out, the reality that I see is very different.

In order to succeed in a claim for unfair dismissal, for example where someone has been dismissed on the grounds of conduct or capability, an employee has to show that the decision to dismiss fell outside of the ‘range of reasonable responses’ open to the employer. This means that even if the tribunal panel members are of the view that they would not have dismissed the employee in the same circumstances, they could still find that the dismissal was fair. Therefore, the burden on employers is not particularly onerous.

In fact, statistics show that in the year 2008-9, of all unfair dismissal cases that were heard in the Employment Tribunal 57.8 per cent were unsuccessful. And despite stories in the press of huge awards for compensation, the median award was only £4,269 and only 2.6 per cent of claimants were awarded £40,000 or above.

There have been recent reports in the media of business leaders complaining of having to defend cases with little merit and CBI director-general designate John Cridland has accused many claimants of being disingenuous. These complaints appear to be based on anecdotes rather than facts.

From my experience, making the decision to pursue an employer in an employment tribunal is not something that most employees take lightly. In any event, tribunals already have the power to strike out claims which do not have reasonable prospects of success or which are being pursued vexatiously. Further, tribunals already have the power to award costs where a party has acted unreasonably or the case is without merit. In fact, in 2008-9 costs were awarded to employers in 265 cases. There is simply no need to change the law.

At a time when hard working people are worried about a rise in the cost of living and cuts in public services, it is more important than ever that they have job security. If employees can be sacked before their two year anniversary, without any reason or any proper procedure, unscrupulous employers may simply enter into a revolving door of ‘hiring and firing’; dismissing employees just before the two years are up in order to ensure the workforce does not gain employment rights. Raising the qualifying period does not reduce the numbers of claims anyway. Many of the matters considered by tribunals are not based on any qualifying service, like deductions from wages or discrimination claims. Raising the qualifying period may simply result in those dismissed formulating their claim as a discrimination case.

It seems that we are about to witness a concerted attack on employment rights by the coalition. Yet they have no mandate for such an attack which would leave many working people vulnerable.

Photo: Nadessa