Clash Over Proposals to Extend Unfair Dismissal Qualifying Period
Posted on by Angela Rhodes
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) claimed in its submission in response to the Government’s review of the employment tribunal system that extending the qualifying period against unfair dismissal from one year to two years will affect almost 3 million workers, and also oppose the plans to introduce fees for those wishing to take their employers to employment tribunals.
The TUC accept that more needs to be done to speed up tribunal claims but considers that it is unfair for the Government to seek to make these improvements by restricting access to justice and effectively pricing low-paid workers out of the system. Nearly 70% of tribunal claimants have either average or below-average earnings and 35% earn less than £15,000.
The TUC have cited Government statistics that show young people, ethnic minorities and female part-time workers will be most affected by the current proposals.
< Go back
- 59% employees under the age of 24 have less than two years’ service
- 30% of ethnic minority employees have less than two years’ service whereas 24% of white employees have less than two years’ service
- 32% of part-time employees have less than two years’ service with 22% of full-time employees
- 500,000 female part-time workers would directly lose out as a result of increasing the qualifying period to two years.
< Go back