Watered down workers protection

@Firefumes That’s rich, coming from you. You’re guilty of unfair dismissal yourself. And you never provided a proper employment contract. You’ve broken quite a lot of rules here.

Oh, you say you haven’t? That I’m making a spurious accusation? Let’s go to an ET to settle it then. Or maybe just pay me off to save yourself the hassle and legal fees.

That’s the point at which it becomes safer not to take a chance on someone who might not work out.

The people who suffer most? Those with a patchy prior employment record, people who seem a bit off, people trying to turn over a new leaf. They don’t get employed. Those who look the part and come recommended are much safer all round.

Absolutely - this will impact young people, new to employment, more than anyone. Another spectacular own goal for labour

Didn’t seem to be much involved in mine or my colleagues
none of us were shit, it’s just frustrating you can leave a job, start a new one and 8 weeks later they say they’re over staffed and get rid of you with immediate effect

But @napody you call the watering down, “working through a good compromise”. Sharon Graham, head of Unite calls it “a shell of its former self” and calls it a betrayal.

I believe the initial thinking was to reduce the number of people ping-ponging in and out of employment/UC by putting the responsibility on employers to give new employees a similar 'fair chance' to resolve early issues with conduct, capability etc as any other employee.

Personally I thought day 1 protection was a ridiculous suggestion. I think two years is similarly ridiculous; six months seems like a good fit.

You’re right but it’s Starmer and Labour over the advisors. To put day 1 in the manifesto is either completely clueless or lying to pull the wool over unions. Probably both.

Thank you.

Not at interview stage, but you would have to disclose for it be a valid claim. Some would, of course, be obvious (age, sex, race etc) but you can’t claim you were unfairly dismissed due to a disability or because you are pregnant if your employer doesn’t know you are disabled or pregnant.

Labour was mad to promise not to raise income tax, NICs or VAT and also mad to promise full employment rights from day 1.

Makes me wonder who is advising them to adopt such ridiculous positions.

Two years is too long, 6 months is (in my view) what they should have put in the manifesto.

Do you have to disclose a protected characteristic at the interview stage to allow it to be used as day 1 employment rights protection for you?

Day 1 is insanity.

The amount of admin involved in a dismissal is unbelievable, as it should be. Some people are useless and lie to get in the door.

Small businesses can be dragged under if they make a poor hire that they can't get rid of. Other employees suffer if their new colleague is lazy, difficult, incompetent.

Of course, PC like race and disability should be covered from day one, and they are.

Six months is a good compromise. Most assholes will have revealed themselves in that time frame.

I got let go along with colleagues and was fuming they’re allowed to do that
they recruited me then let us go after 8 weeks. One woman had only been there 3 weeks!
saying they were over staffed

It was a proposal put together by someone who had no understanding of the legal mechanisms of unfair dismissal or probationary periods. They immediately said that while it would be a day 1 right, there would be something in the first 6-9 months, which was always doomed to fail. You can’t have a different standard of fairness apply, and so the only thing that ever made sense under the existing legal framework was for it to kick in later than day 1.

The unions aren’t happy with the manifesto break. And as pp said they’re a major donor. Or perhaps were.

I am a union member but I don't have any wish for my employer to have to hang on to a useless new employee, it just makes my working life harder.

Of course they needed to appease the unions. The labour government and the unions are an informal coalition.

The Unions are the main financial backers of the manifesto campaign. So appease them they do!

YANBU- it's a good end result.

Of course all the headlines and interviews are about 'u- turns'. Well done labour for being adults and working through a good compromise- they've also kept the other day 1 protections in. The tories didn't have as many 'u-turns' because they didnt try and help anyone in the first place! Also, I hate the phrase u-turn- if you keep most of the actions in a bill and delay one of them that's hardly a u-turn, its a slight course correction at most!

Even with all the crap communication and misjudgement we are seeing now, it's a drop in the ocean compared ro what came before.

@Firefumes, your contempt for the level of the debate and the opinion of others is palpable. I would go as far as to rude!

“You sound ridiculous, intelligence level in the toilet”

“The exact part the OP was yapping about”

Is this how you speak to people? What’s up?

You are not making sense. The proposal under discussion is extending protection to day one for reasons other than those that are already automatically unfair. Dismissing someone for pregnancy, discrimination, assertion of statutory rights, etc., is already unfair from day one.

“err no” yourself.

The exact part the OP was yapping about was “day 1 unfair dismissal”. It’s right there in the OP and the chain I quoted.

Unfair dismissal should never be tolerated in my opinion but during your probationary period you should be allowed to be let go because you don’t fit the role you were hired for thus no good at job, fine to let go, pregnant, not allowed to let go.

Wasn't it Raynor who led this policy? So now she is no longer Deputy they could change it to something workable.

Young workers are already struggling to get jobs and have to complete ridiculous levels of assessment before a job offer, so a Day1 protection would make employers even more risk adverse so recruitment would have more hurdles.

Had this gone through I would only take on those who could demonstrate a solid work history as otherwise the risk/threat of tribunals would be high

firefumes. Errr no. If you are dismissed for a whole variety of reasons, including pregnancy, asking to take mat leave and all forms of discrimination, you are already protected from day 1. The problem here is a lack of understanding of existing rights, rather than a need to add new ones. Now is definitely not the time to be deterring job creation. The whole bill should be put on the shelf for a long time. Only university academics with no knowledge of the workplace can believe this is how you build growth.

The role I’m in people are literally dismissed unfairly on a daily basis. Which actually does the business no good whatsoever because there’s no stability people come in looking for the same person that they’d like to deal with twice because that person has all the knowledge about their situation and of course the person has been unfairly dismissed.
How people can live and plan their lives like this I don’t know when does it come in?