Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Is Employment Law fair to Anybody?

Sir Digby Jones recently called for a `bonfire' of red tape in relation to small business regulation. He reserved most of his fire for the `Health and Safety' at work industry which has grown amid the welter of EU directives.

My particular ire is the red tape attached to the regulations around employment. Now before I start, I do not think the balance between employers and employees is particularly out of kilter. A touch perhaps, but this isn't my point.

My contention is that the way the regulations operate, say, around redundancy, redeployment and so on don't actually help either employer or employee. That `fairness' in its legal sense, doesn't really translate into fairness on the ground for real people, or indeed, fairness to the employer who, amid trying to stick by the rules is taking a lot of time and resource out of the operation.

I can't use specific examples for obvious reasons but I wonder if I am alone in this observation?

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