Pay up to £1750 fee to take your employer to court: A Bullies' Charter

The Tory led coalition are planning to charge workers up £1750 to take their employer to an employment tribunal.  Never mind the cost of hiring a solicitor or barrister to represent you.  Remember you cannot get legal aid for employment cases and that you cannot claim your legal costs even if you win.  If you lose and want to appeal then you will have to pay another £1600 (£400 issue fee and £1200 hearing fee) as well as your legal costs.

Soon if you start a new job you will have to wait for two years to be protected from unfair dismissal no matter how rotten you have been treated. Health and safety protections at work are also under threat as well as many of the so called gold plated European employment protections.  

The Tories are also talking about introducing the legal right to sack any worker without even giving a reason.  

Since only 18% of ET claims were successful at a full hearing in 2005/2006 and the median award for unfair dismissal was only £4,228 what this means is that most people will not take out a claim since it will not be worth it no matter how awful they have been treated at work. This is a charter for bullying management. The only hope workers have are the trade unions.  We need to make sure that we are up to this challenge.

I blame this Tory led Coalition for everything that is happening but I also remember those in May last year who claimed that there is no difference between Labour and the Tories.