Department for Business, Innovation and Skills: Consultation on Implementing Employee Owner Status
Maternity Action and Imkaan are encouraging charities to respond to this consultation as it is important that the views of ethical employers are heard in this debate. Charities are employers, however this is often not considered in public policy discussions. The views of ethical employers will be of use in balancing the views expressed by employer groups that employment protections are a burden on employers and an impediment to growth.
Maternity Action is particularly concerned by the attack on maternity rights contained in the new contracts. Women will need to provide twice as much notice of early return from maternity leave (16 weeks instead of 8 weeks) and will lose the right to request flexible working in most circumstances. This is in addition to the loss of unfair dismissal rights, statutory redundancy pay and training rights.
The consultation is taking place at breakneck speed over a 3 week period, rather than the usual 12 weeks. The legislation is being rushed through Parliament and will commence operation in April 2013.
Maternity Action has produced a template consultation response, available here. To respond, you will need to add a few organisational details on page 2, then email the response to implementing.employee@bis.gov.uk and cc your response to campaigns@maternityaction.org.uk
When inputting your details, please remember to tick both the charity box (if you are a charity) and the business box (Micro business 1-9 staff, or Small business 10-49 staff, or Medium business 50-250 staff).
Thank you.
