... to 2 years, from April Fools Day 2012

Smart money is that they will also at the same time introduce a fee for bringing a claim; this will likely be relatively modest and then will increase exponentially like other court fees have.

Whilst this won't affect dismissals for grounds which are automatically unfair (pregnancy, discrimination, etc) it seems to me a retrograde step, and I don't see the justification for such a serious reduction in workers' rights - particularly given the current parlous state of the economy.

But - as in the case of innocent accident victims, banks, etc - the government is unashamedly in thrall to big business, and is keen to present them with nice little earners at every opportunity.

Whilst there has to be some qualifying time limit, a year is a long time. would ask - if I have worked somewhere for 1 year and 11 months of good service, why should the employer have carte blanche from April to sack me totally unfairly? I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer from these bastaards.

Because it's one of the reasons the economy isn't growing – along with health and safety regulations.

Workers rights - Tory government, not exactly a match made in heaven.

In fairness this will probably affect small businesses more as big business tends to have big HR departments and lengthy recruitment processes so they can get the right match. Small businesses have to take on more of a risk so anything that makes them less apprehensive about taking the risk is positive IMO.

Oh absolutely, it's the inability of small employers to fire someone unfairly in breach of the law after their first year of employment which is responsible for the dearth of jobs in the economy ...


Can you think of a single other area of law where the victim of an unlawful act isn't allowed to seek redress from the court until they've waited a qualifying period? Imagine the outcry if the government proposed that you could only ask a court to punish someone who burgled your house after you'd lived there for two years ...

If a company needs more than a year to decide whether an employee is any good, they don't deserve to be in business.

... and of course any employer can fire a worker for being incompetent (along with a host of other reasons) at any time, perfectly fairly and legally.

This measure relates only to firing someone unfairly and unlawfully.

In reality where this is most likely to be used is when businesses need to shed staff and so they can say last in first out, you started 18 months ago so sorry time's up. Also be able to select the less productive workers when it comes to that point. It gives businesses some more flexibility to hire and fire.

I think what you're referring to is known as redundancy, and is a quite legitimate course of action for a company that finds itself (genuinely) with surplus employees. That is not the same as dismissing someone unfairly.