The Pandemic Impact on Employment Across the UK

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The lack of clarity inherent within the law governing employment status provides unscrupulous employees and employers with enough room for confusing the system and achieving their own objectives. One of the main reasons why it became possible was the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent impact on all kinds of areas of employment across the UK. The lack of balance in terms of the knowledge of one’s rights became the cornerstone of cases of exploitation and unfair treatment over the course of the past two years. Thus, practically no new rulings took on the ability of employees and employers to display unscrupulousness and make the best use of the system. The pressure created by the pandemic could not be overcome because lots of employees refused to take flexible working hours and control their work-life balance better. Thus, the core issue affecting many organizations across the UK at the moment is the need to increase minimum wages and battle inflation while having to cope with unscrupulous employees and employers trying to exploit the legislation for their own benefit.

One of the most popular tactics utilized by employers is to fire and rehire employees to offer them worse-term contracts that they will not be able to refuse due to the lack of available jobs. This may be a violation of Employment Rights, established back in 1996, in the Fairness section. A fair dismissal must be correct and reasonably justified; if the employee is re-hired but with worse conditions, this violates the original fairness of the dismissal. This is one of the threats that practically cannot be monitored by the Trade Unions Congress to ensure that it is not going to repeat in the future. Therefore, the existing legislation is a series of backdoors that can be exploited by employers to sustain the gig economy while benefiting employees. With a guaranteed minimum wage, these employees do not have room for an argument that could prevent them from being played by the employer. The same is also true for delivery workers who have been promoted to self-employed status in order to reduce the burden on the organisation’s budget. It can be stated that there are going to be far-reaching consequences related to how these employees are going to be paid by their respective employers.

When looking back at the UK-based laws covering the relationships between employees and employers, it should be crucial to point out the lack of employment watchdogs. The government should seek opportunities to deploy such forms of mediating the occurrence of exploitation and unfair treatment. The specific focus should be on the low-paid sector because even the basic workers’ rights are violated there. Further enhancements are required if the government expects to utilize watchdogs to protect employee rights and ensure that all businesses treat their staff members fairly. The minority groups from both employee and employer camps seem to disregard the need to avoid exploitation, so it should be crucial to pinpoint the biggest cases of modern slavery and prevent similar experiences in the future. Despite the challenges linked to the pandemic, it should be fundamental for the UK government to introduce watchdogs and see how the abuse of supply chains and employees could be stopped. The rights and obligations should be conveyed to all workers in a comprehensible manner in order to prevent employees from exploiting their employers as well.

Wojciech’s dismissal creates room for several instances of liability for the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire. The first potential issue that is going to follow the allegedly unfair treatment is the conciliation conference, where a Fair Work officer, Wojciech, and the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire will get involved in a semi-informal negotiation. Also, a hearing could be carried out for the two arguing parties, with the only differences being the presence of the Commissioner and a significantly higher cost of the procedure. The Commissioner is going to be responsible for making the decision to resolve the argument between Wojciech and the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire. Overall, the impact of these actions would go beyond any legal costs and contribute to the growth of a negative reputation for the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire. The court may consider this case a restriction of freedom of speech, as was decided in Epperson’s case. Arkansas. A teacher in Arkansas was threatened with dismissal for using books that say that humans are descended from lower animals. The utterance was banned in the early 20th century through active religious fervor. Although Wojciech claims he had nothing against the Conservatory, its policies also restrict the freedom of speech enacted in the Human Rights Act. Given that the ground for unfair treatment is rather stable, the organisation would have to endure an ongoing case where the unfair dismissal claim is not going to be attained quickly.

Another critical issue that has to be considered to be a form of liability for the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire is the fact that remaining employees would be rather likely to suffer from hopelessness and depressive episodes. After seeing their colleague being treated unfairly, they would expect the same attitude toward themselves. From an increase in sick leaves to the growing number of resignations, the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire would have to persevere a number of consequences of unfair treatment. It also shows that the dispute between Wojciech and the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire is a liability in itself because it will affect the costs of business affairs. Accordingly, an allegedly unfair dismissal is going to cause additional issues that will not be resolved quickly because other staff members of the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire are going to remain worried. Thus, it was required the administration to remain transparent while communicating with Wojciech, but the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire failed to consider the importance of looking into employment laws prior to forcing one of their employees to resign over a liked tweet on Twitter.

Overall, it has to be noted that the administration of the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire lacked objectivity and substantiality when communicating the need to resign Wojciech. Even though the remarks regarding the employee’s behavior were relevant, they did not reflect an actual violation of the current legislation or provide the management with a legitimate reason to terminate the relationship with Wojciech. The idea here is to adhere to the statutory reasons of conduct and advocate for fair treatment that would also be supported by relevant Parliamentary amendments. The specifics of the issue should be viewed through the prism of substantiality in order to help the administration of the Royal Harrogate Conservatoire counterbalance all the possible ways of exploiting the employment law as well. The range of reasonable responses to various employee behaviors should be broadened significantly to exclude the probability of any management unit being limited by the need to terminate an employee over trivial misconduct.

Based on the existing evidence, it can be concluded that the current whistle-blower protection is powerful enough to maintain the balance between an employer’s needs and the opinions displayed by the public. The current level of legal protection is comprehensive enough to help managers ensure that various strategies can be utilized to protect the employee who reported any given issue. According to the UK laws on whistle-blowing, there is a direct connection between the Employment Rights Act 1996 and its further amendments, including the Public Interest Disclosure Act deployed in 1998. The level of protection induced by the latter can be described as an adequate response to the fact that certain issues should be reported to the management since not all employees showcase ethical conduct at all times. Therefore, it is crucial to point out that the Public Interest Disclosure Act is the primary means of attaining protected disclosures. These give the right to employees to claim unfair dismissals if their whistle-blowing actions have ultimately led to them being fired from the organization.

It is also important to note that there can be whistle-blowing activities touching upon the events that occurred outside the UK. The core obligation of the government, in this case, is to force the given whistle-blower to provide a reasonable belief that would be considered a relevant failure. Adequate protection for the whistle-blower would mean the inability of a formal disclosure within any given environment. Irrespective of the further legal proceedings, the UK law provides organizations with enough instruments to consider proactive approaches to whistle-blowers and the consequences of their reports. The only condition to be considered when seeking protection for a whistle-blower is the need to adhere to the belief that the report can be approached honestly based on the given circumstances. Thus, it is vital to create an environment where disclosures can be treated as something usual, with no negative outcomes for the organization or employees transpiring over time.

The current level of protection has to be reviewed because there are certain types of disclosure that do not fall under the wing of legislation-induced protection. For example, one could reference the Official Secrets Act of 1989 and highlight the increasing role of legal professional privilege. The UK law only protects whistle-blower disclosures when the person reports the incident to an appropriate party. If there is a person that can be reasonably believed to remain responsible for the relevant failure at hand, the organization will have to take immediate action against the target of whistle-blowing. The process of obtaining protection for whistle-blowers who report to a person or an organization outside the recommendations made by the Secretary of State is slightly different. With additional conditions being respected, it will be easier for whistle-blowers and organizations to find common ground and reduce the occurrence of cases when a person is unlawfully dismissed or suffers any kind of detriment.

Another reason why the existing circumstances can be considered sufficient is that the UK law presupposes that there can be carried out an adequate employment tribunal. Knowing that unfair dismissal claims are subject to a three-month period of limitation, it should be relevant for the organization and the whistle-blower to resort to the Employment Act of 2002 and exercise all possible discretion. The further considerations are going to revolve around the gravity of the relevant failure, the possibility of re-offense, and the probability of breaching disclosure confidentiality. Thus, the UK law provides whistle-blowers and organisations with enough room to orchestrate compensation or reinstatement in the case of the claim of detriment being exceptionally detailed and well-founded. Unfair dismissal is covered by the Public Interest Disclosure Act to an extent where all whistle-blowers can be protected and subject to compensations.

Reference List

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Table of Cases

Epperson v. Arkansas [1968] 393 US 97

Table of Legislation

Employment Rights Act 1996, 98

Human Rights Act 1998

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The Pandemic Impact on Employment Across the UK

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