The Liberal Party recognises the vital role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME’s) or small businesses in the need to create growth to increase economic recovery from the Covid pandemic.
This means that we need to create the balance of social needs and business flexibility to encourage growth whilst protecting workers rights.
Therefore, we call for an immediate review of rules applicable to SME’s or small businesses with reference to employment law and to this end propose:
SME’s be subject to the same balance of proof by any employee in any unfair dismissal proceeding
That the proof of being an unfair dismissal must not rest on procedural issues alone, but the substantive judgment by the employer was unreasonable
We would like to see greater use of arbitration and reconciliation.
We believe this protection be given to SME’s or small business of equivalent to 20 full-time employees as one tribunal’s case alone could threaten the viability of the business.
To improve the rights of employees the threshold for unfair dismissal claims would be reduced to 1 year.