19 October 2012

The Government yesterday launched a consultation into implementing employee-owner status, which would allow employers to offer their workers shares in lieu of employment rights - but those in opposition are given an unusually short amount of time to submit a response.

Normally, consultation periods are around 12 weeks long, giving interested parties enough time to conduct research and construct their argument. However, the consultation into the shares-for-rights scheme is only a quarter of this length at three weeks.

The IER will be submitting a response to these damaging proposals, which would see workers offered between £2,000 and £50,000 of equity in the organisation they work for at the cost of protection against unfair dismissal, their right to request training and flexible working conditions, to receive redundancy pay, and it would even affect parental and adoption leave.

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