Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:06 pm  

After losing a job after eleven and a half months because there was no need for any fair process to be taken I will only say that this is going even further in the wrong direction

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:40 pm  

Yet another reason for a benefit claimant to remain so. I can see from a claimants point of view, why take the risk of entering full time employment (minimum wage, manual labour in particular) and getting booted for no real reason? You then go through the hassle of trying to explain to the dole office why you got booted!.......The poverty trap is even more relevant today than ever.

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:46 pm  

deeHell wrote:

Yet another reason for a benefit claimant to remain so.

To be honest, that is bollox.

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:53 pm  

It will make it harder to get back into work afterwards though, if you are sacked there will always be a suspicion that it was the employees fault no matter what the circumstance

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:39 pm  

tb wrote:

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?..

This statement is complete nonsense. The qualifying period for unfair dismissal is one year (soon to be extended), and anyone dismissed prior to this, by definition, is not the victim of an unlawful act (unless they are dismissed for a reason that is classed as automatically unfair - pregnancy etc...)

We need a qualifying period. Everyone makes bad appointments from time to time, and the qualifying period allows employers to rectify these without the need for large compensation payouts.

Having said that 2 years is excessive.

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:13 am  

The Video Ref wrote:

This statement is complete nonsense. The qualifying period for unfair dismissal is one year (soon to be extended), and anyone dismissed prior to this, by definition, is not the victim of an unlawful act (unless they are dismissed for a reason that is classed as automatically unfair - pregnancy etc...)

We need a qualifying period. Everyone makes bad appointments from time to time, and the qualifying period allows employers to rectify these without the need for large compensation payouts.

Having said that 2 years is excessive.

But this only affects somebody dismissed by what we, as a society, define as unfair.

This extension is in no other words, a charter for business to behave unfairly within the first two years. It is, by its very definition unfair. Any business behaving fairly would be in no way affected by this.

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:26 am  

The Video Ref wrote:

This statement is complete nonsense. The qualifying period for unfair dismissal is one year (soon to be extended), and anyone dismissed prior to this, by definition, is not the victim of an unlawful act (unless they are dismissed for a reason that is classed as automatically unfair - pregnancy etc...)

We need a qualifying period. Everyone makes bad appointments from time to time, and the qualifying period allows employers to rectify these without the need for large compensation payouts.

Having said that 2 years is excessive.

It's not nonsense. Allowing an employee to be sacked without having done anything wrong is unfair on that employee. In the same way that allowing a burglar to take from your house would be unfair. If you'd only just moved into your house you would expect the same protection under the law as someone who'd lived there for 20 years. So why is employment law different?
If the employer made a mistake and either doesn't need or want that employee then that is the employer's mistake. Why should the employee suffer because of a mistake by an employer?
If the employee is not up to the required standard then they can be sacked legitimately without need for any qualifying period. So why is this period necessary?
If an employer wants a "flexible" workforce then they should employ workers on short term contracts ie 3/4/5/whatever years and pay the corresponding rise in wages necessary to compensate for lower job security.

Employers seem to want everything their way.

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:23 am  

tb wrote:

... 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 ...

SHUT UP, ffs, you might be putting ideas into the b'stards' heads

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:46 am  

The Video Ref wrote:

This statement is complete nonsense. The qualifying period for unfair dismissal is one year (soon to be extended), and anyone dismissed prior to this, by definition, is not the victim of an unlawful act ...

Completely irrelevant. You can be dismissed unfairly at any time, even your first day. The only relevance of the law relating to unfair dismissal is whether you can claim for it or not. Just because you have not worked at a place long enough to qualify does not make a dismissal fair.

The Video Ref wrote:

We need a qualifying period. Everyone makes bad appointments from time to time, and the qualifying period allows employers to rectify these without the need for large compensation payouts.

Disingenuous nonsense. Define "Made a mistake". If you are not incapable of doing the job, if you haven't lied about your qualifications, if your conduct hasn't been poor, if you have done nothing illegal, and in short committed no sackable offence, then what do you count as an "employer's mistake" justifying ending someone's job?

The Video Ref wrote:

Having said that 2 years is excessive.

Which is the whole point of the thread

Re: Unfair dismissal - qualifying period extended : Fri Nov 18, 2011 8:47 am  

If the government want to make it more attractive to start and run a business then maybe they could reduced the amount of form filling we have to do for the Office of National Statistics. We have to fill in:

Monthly - turnover data, headcount data, labour cost

Quarterly - Capital spend details, Quarterly stock details

Annually - Business register survey, Business survey - breakdown of the income statement, International trade survey, Prodcom

Whilst I disagree with this change I cannot see it being abused by the bigger employers - Public sector, supermarkets etc. I also can't see the logic in spending time training and integrating personnel into your firm for two years and then finishing them to prevent an unfair dismisal claim in the future. If someone has survived passed their probabtionary period it usually a good indication of their suitability.

The majority of posts on here are just sabre rattling from the usual suspects with an axe to grind against the Tories and their perceived masters.