13 October 2012

Osborne Offers Dodgey Deal on Employment Rights

A surprising article from the Financial Times identifies 'cash upfront on the road to serfdom'. It describes how plans announced by George Osborne offer employees the chance to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, or in this case to voluntarily relinquish their employment rights in exchange for shares in the company they work for. This is taking the idea of self-exploitation to new depths.

This is surely unlikely to be legal, and a letter from an employment lawyer in the same edition of the paper suggests that this is more ineptitude on the part of Osborne, or what he calls a 'car crash of a policy'. His argument relies on the precedence on European law, however, and the defence we have from European human rights and employment law is clearly the target of the 'renegotiation' with the EU that Cameron is calling for.

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