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Election 2010: Effects on Employment - stick or twist

Jon FriendToday is the big day to vote for a party, despoil your ballot paper or forever hold your peace!

Our Employment lawyers have been following the policy statements of four of the political parties and their official manifesto releases to assess how businesses will be affected by the proposed changes.  Here are some of our findings;

As you will see, there are more similarities between the parties than they would like you to believe….

Labour

Significant changes have been made to employment law and discrimination legislation while Labour has been in power.  Some of the key changes have already been started, such as the Agency Worker Regulations and Equality Act 2010.

Key policies include:
• increase paid paternity leave entitlement to four weeks and introduce shared maternity leave.
• increase national minimum wage in line with average earnings each year until 2015.
• restrict pay for senior public sector employees and cap future public sector pay rises.
• require shareholder approval of banks’ pay policies.
• encourage employers to take action to eliminate gender pay inequality through the introduction of pay reviews.
• abolish the retirement age of 65.
• introduce a right to request flexible working for older workers.

Conservative

The mantra of the Conservative Party is “simplifying employment law to make it easier to hire people”.

The Conservatives propose to review all existing employment law and remove much of the European legislation which has been enacted into UK law and to introduce a “one in, one out” policy on all new legislation .

Key policies include:
• extend flexible working entitlements to all parents with children under the age of 18.
• introduce a policy of flexible parental leave, entitling parents to take 52 weeks leave between them.
• freeze pay for all public sector workers (excluding the million lowest paid).
• publish details of public sector employees who are paid over £150,000 a year.
• establish a new regulator to stop senior public-sector employees from earning more than 20 times more than the lowest paid employee in their particular organisation.

Liberal Democrats

Like the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrat Party propose to review all employment law and repeal European enactments where this is practical.

Key policies include:
• a cap on future bonuses for bank employees requiring banks to publish the names of any bank employees who earn more than the prime minister.
• require publicly listed companies to declare where any employees are being paid more than £200,000 per year.
• allow voters to remove their MP where they have not performed and call a by-election.
• remove the requirement for individuals to pay tax on the first £10,000 of their income.
• introduce shared maternity and paternity leave for up to 18 months.
• allow fathers time off for antenatal appointments.
• extend the right to request flexible working to all employees.
• introduce name-blind application forms to tackle discrimination.
• introduce a single national minimum wage rate for all workers over 16.
• encourage employers with more than 100 employees to reduce the gender pay gap by carrying out equal pay audits.
• abolish the compulsory retirement age.

The Green Party

The immediate priority of the Green Party is to create one million new jobs within the first year through the Green New Deal investment plan.

Key policies include:
• invest in renewable energy, public transport and waste management.
• offer training courses for jobs in energy conservation and renewable energy.
• work towards a 35-hour working week.
• promote gender equality by introducing a Citizen’s Pension and childcare policies.
• introduce equal pay audits for larger employers.
• require 40% of board members of larger companies to be female within five years.
• support a National Minimum Wage that is 60% of net national average earnings (currently £8.10 per hour).
• introduce legislation to stop late payments to small businesses.
• reduce corporation tax for small firms to 20%.

For a free consultation on the above or any employment matter, please contact one of our Senior Employment Solicitors, Jon Friend on 08458 678 978 or email  office@acumenbusinesslaw.co.uk

1 Comment

  1. economy - 12/06/2010

    Hmmm…very good to find out, there were without a doubt a couple of points which I hadn’t thought of before.

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