Small firms in legal straitjacket

The competitive edge of small business in the UK is being eroded by Government plans that will make it illegal for employers not to give staff a minimum of 28 days holiday a year, an employers' organisation has claimed. The Forum of Private Business (FPB) said the move, coming just weeks after the latest minimum wage increase and the announcement that paternity leave is to be increased from two weeks to six months, will be greeted with dismay by employers. " This is an utterly unnecessary piece of legislation which again ties small businesses up in a legal straitjacket,' said the FPB's National Chairman Len Collinson. "Small firms rely on the flexibility of their staff to remain competitive, particularly at times of peak demand. This legislation will inevitably increase staffing costs coming straight off firms' bottom line. But that flexibility cuts both ways in that employees of small businesses benefit from extra holiday or extended leave they would never get at a large business.

The message is that the Government should leave small firms to get on with running their business, not impose more punitive legislation." FPB member Keith Chetwynd, Managing Director of RK Engineering in Warwickshire, said the move could lead him to employ more agency staff. " With the paternity leave and the minimum wage this is just crazy,' he said. "I already give my staff 28 days holiday, and I pay my low-paid staff more than the minimum wage but it is the principle. The Government is obsessed with wrapping employees up in cotton wool. I need to be flexible or risk losing work. These politicians cannot see what they are doing. I'm being hammered by them and the bank. I'm at the end of my tether." Another FPB member Brian Hogg, Managing Director of Cams Fire and Security PLC in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said employment legislation was becoming increasingly punitive when added together. " There is no flexibility left at all,' he said. "We actually offer our staff 23 days plus bank holidays. Small businesses have a unique place in the British economy because we can offer staff all kinds of benefits. This legislation implies small firms are bad employers. I consider myself a good employer and ironically this will actually be bad for employees." . Government moves to give fathers the right to six months' paternity leave could seriously damage thousands of smaller businesses, which rely on skilled male workers, according to the FPB. " In many cases it will be impossible for a firm such an engineering company to find a temporary replacement skilled enough to provide paternity leave cover," FPB Chief Executive Nick Goulding pointed out. " While we endorse equal opportunities in the workplace, some of the firms we represent say they might even be forced to close if some of their key skilled male workers took up the right to paternity leave," he added.(19/10/05)

Time Attendance News