UNITE: Welcome to `Get your coat, your fired` Britain

UNITE: Welcome to `Get your coat, your fired` Britain

UNITE: Welcome to `Get your coat, your fired` Britain

Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has vowed to oppose the Tory-led government’s ‘Get your coat, your fired’ agenda.

The Government today (27th January 2010) put forward plans to increase the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims from one to two years and suggested fees for taking employment tribunal cases under plans to reform the system. The government’s plans to attack employees access to justice in the workplace is yet another signal that this Tory led government is leaving working families to either sink or swim. The proposals have nothing to do with stimulating jobs and growth and is clearly an opportunistic assault on UK employment rights, already the poorest in the EU. Unite says the government will return the country to a time when employers could dismiss their staff on a whim. The changes are also another attack on young people fighting to enter the job market with no protection from dismissal, on top of having their university fees tripled and educational maintenance allowance scrapped.

Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, said:

“The Tory led Government is taking us back in time to the days when your boss could say ‘get your coat your fired’. This is the clearest signal yet that working families are on their own under this government.

“It is utter nonsense to suggest that granting employers the power to sack workers on a whim will stimulate employment. It’s equally wrong that the bulk of claims are vexatious. Plainly and simply, these proposals are a shameless, cynical attack on workers’ rights which are already the poorest in the EU.

“Unite will fiercely oppose the government on this issue. Working people breathed a sigh of relief when Labour reduced the qualifying period for unfair dismissal, now workers are holding their breath.”

ENDS

Contact: Ciaran Naidoo on 07768 931 315