Softening up exercise on unfair dismissal?

It seems the government has already decided on doubling the qualifying period for unfair dismissals claims to two years.

Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation Skills (BIS) has recently published a report on its deregulation progress One-in, one-out: second statement of new regulation. It includes the following decision: “We are increasing the qualifying period for employees to be able to bring a claim for unfair dismissal from one to two years and introducing fees for lodging employment tribunal cases to tackle vexatious claims.”

BIS claimed it was a “drafting error” and that “no final decision has been taken to increase the unfair dismissal qualifying period". It’s an old softening up ploy and it will be just a matter of time before the government officially announces the change.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite general union, said: “When will this government understand that there is not a culture of ‘vexatious’ claims? Proper checks and balances are in place to root out those cases.”

www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/government_dilutes_workers__ri.aspx