Changes to collective redundancies rules to help employees and businesses have been announced by the Employment Relations Minister.
Following consultation in June and calls for improvements to the way collective redundancies rules operate and for the processes involved to be made easier to understand, the government has announced it plans to: reduce the current 90 day minimum period, before very large scale redundancies can take place, to 45 days legislate to make clear that fixed term contracts which have reached the end of their natural life are excluded from obligations for collective redundancies consultation introduce new non-statutory Acas guidance to address a number of key issues affecting collective redundancies consultation.
The collective redundancies consultation response also forms part of the government’s commitment to review employment law to support business and concentrate on growth.
The replacement of the current 90 day period to 45 days will still allow full employee engagement and offer employee representatives a statutory right to contribute to the process. The new 45 day period will be a minimum period, and businesses may consult for longer where appropriate.
The changes will be made through secondary legislation. Draft regulations will be laid in the New Year and the changes are expected to be made by 6 April 2013.
Read the BIS press release .
TUC – FOUR YEAR REAL WAGE FALL WILL COST THE AVERAGE WORKER £6,000
15 January 2013
If you find wage and salary statistics useful to know, then the announcement from the TUC stating that if wages continue to fail to match the increase in the rate of inflation it will result in the average worker losing £6,000 by 2014, may be of interest to you.
The TUC press release comes prior to the release of the latest government inflation figures.
With the latest inflation figures expected to show that average earnings have now been trailing rising prices for three years, the TUC has calculated that a worker on a median salary of around £25,000 has already lost nearly £4,000 since December 2009, when earnings first fell behind prices. Real wage growth was expected to return in 2013. However, in its latest update last December, the Office for Budget Responsibility put its forecast for real wage growth back until 2014. With real wages now expected to fall for another year, the average worker is set to lose a further £2,000 in 2013, bringing the total wage loss to £6,000 by the time earnings finally start to rise at the same rate as prices in 2014. Full statistical analysis and an updated assessment of the government’s progress in meeting its medium–term fiscal objectives can be found in The Office for Budget Responsibility Economic and fiscal outlook of December 2012.
EHRC PUBLIC SECTOR EQUALITY GUIDANCE
23 January 2013
CIPP Policy News Journal
12/04/2013, Page 323 of 362
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