Big rise in unfair sacking awards
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Your support makes all the difference.PETER MANDELSON, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, is set to increase the maximum compensation for unfair dismissal from pounds 12,000 to up to pounds 50,000.
His decision, however, will anger labour leaders who are still urging Mr Mandelson to remove the upper limit completely, as proposed in the "Fairness at Work" White Paper.
The Confederation of British Industry had suggested a cap of pounds 40,000 based on the movement on prices and earnings since it was last fixed in 1979.
Negotiations are continuing on other key elements,including the proposal in the White Paper to award automatic recognition to a union where half a company's workforce were in membership. Employers want workers to have been union members for at least a year before counting toward the calculation for automatic recognition. Other limits of three and six months are also proposed.
Unions are furious over the moves to water down this clause and argue that it should be left untouched. Management could dismiss staff who had joined a union in order to avoid triggering this automatic recognition, they said.
The White Paper also proposes that workers would have to be employed for a year before they could claim unfair dismissal, compared with the present two-year rule.
Adair Turner, secretary-general of the CBI, rejected as "absolute nonsense" union suggestions that ministers would be acting in "bad faith" if they accepted employers' arguments. He pointed out that some elements of the White Paper had been left "deliberately vague".
Another controversial issue, that employees in all companies should have the right to individual representation by union officials in grievance procedures, has been attacked by employers. They argue that the unions could prompt a series of grievances until they mounted to a collective assault on management.
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