Employment law review
Potential changes have been delayed in the Executive. As expected, business groups favour less regulation and unions backing the status quo.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where employment law is devolved and a review was pledged in the Executive’s Economic Strategy. Formal discussions started in May 2012 and Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry ran a public consultation between July and November 2013.
The consultation paper’s key proposals included:
• the referral of all potential tribunal claims to the Labour Relations Agency;
• an ‘early neutral evaluation service’ to help parties understand potential tribunal outcomes;
• an extension of the current qualification period for unfair dismissal (extended from one to two years in Britain in 2012); and
• a review of the existing policy for compromise agreements, including the potential for protected conversations.
“I have continually stressed that the debate around employment law is too often portrayed in terms of the interests of employers against the rights of workers,” said Stephen Farry. “For that reason, I have given a commitment to seek to develop an employment law system that effectively addresses the needs and interests of both employers and employees.”
As expected, the CBI prefers less regulation and views this as the best way of stimulating growth.
“We need to see a transformational change in how the Northern Ireland Executive approaches employment regulation, in order to encourage job creation,” Director Nigel Smyth has said, pointing to a “tide of reforms” in Britain.
The CBI broadly supports the Minister’s proposals and also wants to see the introduction of fees for lodging a tribunal claim. The tribunal system itself needs to become “easy, accessible, speedy, informal and inexpensive”.
ICTU would prefer to see a fundamental review of industrial relations procedures with new models providing “expeditious and voluntary resolution” when the law is breached. The unions oppose the extension of the qualification period for unfair dismissal, a cap of 12 months’ pay as compensation for unfair dismissal, and any reduction in consultation periods for collective redundancies.
So-called “red tape” can be an essential means to achieve both economic success and greater equality, according to ICTU. Environmental regulation and the minimum wage were both dismissed as red tape before their introduction and the unions contend that the UK already has one of the least regulated labour markets among developed economies.
The outcome of the review was expected to be announced in March but has been held up within the Executive. Some of those who responded to the consultation now expect decisions to be postponed until 2015. The delay may partly be explained by the dispute over welfare reform, which also affects employment policy.
The review should not be confused with the Work and Families Bill, which aims to provide shared parental leave. The Bill passed its second stage in the Assembly in May and is likely to become law later this year.
