2012 Employment Law Development Round-Up By Norfolk Solicitors

Online, March 5, 2012 (Newswire.com) - It's all change in a variety of areas of employment law and the main change we will see in 2012 is how the employment tribunals will be working. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, promised an overhaul of the process in November 2011 and we will begin to see these promises made into reality over the next year. One huge change will be the involvement of ACAS before the case reaches the tribunal, in this instance ACAS will act as almost a buffer, filtering through cases. Last month solicitors also read about the changed legislation which will allow employment judges to sit alone when hearing unfair dismissal cases from 6 April 2012. April 6 will also see the qualifying period for an unfair dismissal rise from one year to two for new employees.

Solicitors have argued that this final point about the dismissal qualifying period will only increase the government's problems. Although they are aiming to reduce the costs of the tribunals to businesses by doing this, only a very small percentage of cases will be affected - 1% or 2,000 per year which will hardly impact on the cost. Also, it is much more likely that people will find a loophole around the change by either filing a discrimination or whistleblowing claim which ironically are both much more costly.

Outside of the tribunals the extension of parental leave has been delayed until 2013. There was quite a strange get out clause in the EU's directive which stated in 2010 that parental leave must be increased from three to four years over the next two years, but in exceptional circumstances the Member States could delay the implementation by one year. This has been allowed because a total new system of flexible parental leave should be introduced in the next few years as response to the Consultation on Modern Workplaces which should be complete in spring 2012.

The Norfolk Solicitor's blog also leaves us with a little food for thought about the strike situation we saw last year when the economy was severely affected. With the economic crisis still not waning, there is no doubt we are likely to see similar actions taking place this year - a push on the government to change how strike ballots operate perhaps?