Leaked report calls for change to unfair dismissal law

"Lazy" workers should lose right to claim

A government report has stated unproductive workers should lose their right to claim unfair dismissal.

The Daily Telegraph reported the leaked document as saying that under current rules workers are allowed to "coast along."

Under the present system workers who feel they were unfairly dismissed can make a claim if they have been in a job for 12 months. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that, from April 2011, an applicant must have been in their job for at least two years before being able to make a claim for unfair dismissal.

The report, written by Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist, calls for an end to unfair dismissal because of its abuse particularly in the public sector.

The report has not been made public but The Daily Telegraph quotes one section as saying "The rules both make it difficult to prove that someone deserves to be dismissed, and demand a process for doing so which is so lengthy and complex that it is hard to implement"

Unions have attacked the report, warning that the move would "horrify" workers.
The head of the equality and employment rights department at the TUC, Sarah Veale, described the proposals as "profoundly unjust" and said Mr Cameron should "throw the report straight in the bin".

John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, said the changes would be counterproductive and would not address the real problems.

In 2010-11 the cost to the taxpayer of running employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal in England, Wales and Scotland was more than £84m, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The Treasury said that more than 80% of applications made to an employment tribunal did not result in a full hearing.

Almost 40% of applicants withdrew their cases, but employers still had to pay legal fees in preparing a defence, it said.