Ministerial comment on Employment Relations Amendment

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A decision made to approve a comment in response to Deputy Southern's Draft Employment Relations (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 200-

Ministerial Decision

Subject:	Ministerial Comment on Deputy Southern’s Draft Employment Relations (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 200- (P.5/2006)
Decision Reference:	MD-S-2006-0015		Exempt clause(s):	n/a
Type of Report: (oral or written)	Written		Person Giving Report (if oral):	n/a
Telephone or e-mail Meeting?	n/a		Report File ref:	L:\General Information\ Workgroups\Policy\ Employment\Ministerial decisions\Comment on Southern ER Law Amends2 30Jan06
Written report – Title	Ministerial Comment on Deputy Southern’s Draft Employment Relations (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 200-, (P.5/200)
Written report – Author (name and job title)	Kate Morel, Policy Principal
Decision(s): To approve a comment in response to Deputy Southern’s Draft Employment Relations (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 200- (P.5/2006), which was presented to the States on 30 January 2006.
Reason(s) for decision: The Employment Relations Law is not yet in force and a detailed expert review is currently underway. There are considerable implications of enforcing collective bargaining on all employers, irrespective of their size. Deputy Southern’s amendment is not considered to be appropriate for a small jurisdiction such as Jersey.
Action required: Submit Ministerial Comment to the Greffe for presentation to the States
Signature: (Minister/ Assistant Minister)		Date of Decision:

Ministerial comment on Employment Relations Amendment

Draft Employment Relations (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 200- (P.5/2006)

Comment in response to Deputy Southern’s amendment

The Minister for Social Security has considered Deputy Southern’s amendment but is unable to support it. The Minister therefore would ask members to reject the amendment for the reasons given below;

The Law has not yet received approval from the UK’s Privy Council and the Social Security Minister is currently seeking expert legal advice on the draft Law and its associated codes of practice (see the Minister’s Comment on Deputy Southern’s ‘Employment Legislation: Petition’ P.214/2005/Com.)

The Minister considers that this amendment could have a significant effect locally, particularly on small employers, by enforcing collective bargaining rights irrespective of number employees in the bargaining unit. Considering that 93% of local employers employ fewer than 21 employees the effect of this amendment is potentially far-reaching. Employers with fewer than 21 employees are exempt from the equivalent UK provisions. Should Deputy Southern’s amendment be accepted, the requirement for an exemption would require further public consultation.

The Minister considers that if employees have a statutory right to representation, it follows that minimum disciplinary and grievance processes might be required in Law, as in the UK, and the whole system would become very legalistic. The aim is to create a simple framework of primary legislation which encourages good practice and provides a dispute resolution process to support the early resolution of disputes. These are to be supplemented by codes of practice covering balloting, recognition, limitations on industrial action, and resolution of collective disputes.

The Minister is not confident that the amendment achieves what Deputy Southern intends. As currently drafted the amendment changes the definition of ‘collective employment dispute’, but does not “replace any arguments over the unreasonableness or otherwise of any such action”, as Deputy Southern suggests it does. The concept of ‘reasonableness’ still remains in the codes of practice for the Tribunal to take into account when considering a dispute; testing for ‘reasonableness’ is an accepted legal concept utilised in much other legislation.

The Minister considers that the amendment to the draft Employment Relations Law should be rejected for the reasons given above.