Justice deferred

A critical guide to the coalition’s employment tribunal reforms

David Renton and Anna Macey, Institute of Employment Rights, paperback, £10 unions and students; £40 others

Buy this book. It is a “must read” for any union members wanting to arm themselves with clear arguments as to why the coalition government’s many changes to employment law are fundamentally wrong and will cause long-term damage both to the most vulnerable in society and to the employment system as a whole.

Using a clear and accessible format, this short book explains each change: the doubling of the service requirement for unfair dismissal, the curtailing of collective redundancy consultation, the introduction of “protected conversations” to make it easier for employers to sack people, plans for Acas compulsory conciliation from spring 2014, tribunal fees and larger tribunal costs orders, as well as a variety of other changes.

The book carefully and critically demolishes each each of these changes — analysing the government’s professed reasoning, exposing the many flaws behind it and questioning what really lies behind the drive to reduce access to justice for ordinary working people.

As the authors say, the changes, taken collectively, “represent the biggest change to employment law since the introduction of the right to claim unfair dismissal more than 40 years ago”.

This review was contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop. Order online at www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk