NationStates Jolt Archive

To the United Nations:

Concerned about the frequency of which unscrupulous and ruthless employers toss aside their workers’ livelihoods, this resolution aims to set out clear rules as to what will not be considered a fair and lawful dismissal or forced redundancy, and what is the correct procedure for making a fair and lawful dismissal.

SECTION ONE: DEFINITIONS OF AN UNFAIR DISMISSAL OR FORCED REDUNDANCY.

A dismissal or forced redundancy shall be considered unfair and unlawful if it is made for any of the following reasons:

• Discrimination, on the basis of religion, political leanings, gender, race, sexual orientation, or age.
• Membership or non-membership of a trade or labour union organisation.
• Partaking in industrial action organised through legally approved means.
• Requesting leave for pregnancy, maternity, paternity, or adoption purposes.
• Taking sick leave where a genuine doctor’s note is provided.
• Refusal to work forced overtime.
• Requesting pay of any minimum wage that may or may not apply in individual nations.
• Pointing out breaches of any applicable health and safety laws.
• Seeking accompaniment at a disciplinary hearing, or seeking to accompany another worker at one.
• Seeking to take time off for dependants, or seeking to take compassionate leave for grievance purposes.
• Having to partake in jury service.



SECTION TWO: CORRECT PROCEDURE FOR MAKING A FAIR AND LAWFUL DISMISSAL OR FORCED REDUNDANCY.

This resolution states that barring extreme cases of gross misconduct (the subjective definition of which must be laid out to the employee upon the start of their employment), an employer will be required to first give a verbal warning, followed by a written warning about any repeated minor offence before making a final dismissal.

In accepted cases of dismissal for gross misconduct or simple incapability of an employee to do their instructed job, the following procedures must still be fully observed.

• The employer must have acted reasonably in giving as much fair information and warning about an offence as possible.
• A disciplinary hearing must be held, at which proof of the offence must be presented, and the employee being dismissed given all reasonable opportunity to defend his or herself.
• In cases of a lack of capability, the hearing must fully consider whether the employee was given warning and chance to improve.
• In the case of a redundancy, it must be fully considered whether any effort was made to find the employee alternative work within the organisation.
• Any dismissed employee will have the right to request a fair and objective written statement, detailing the full reasons for the dismissal or redundancy, within fourteen days.

Any dismissal or forced redundancy which falls under the rules for being unfair and unlawful shall be open for legal challenge to the fullest extent permitted in the nation of the employer.

Category? Strength?

the only problem is the incapability clause.

what about in case of high demanding roles, where lives count on it, ie the military/ fire service/ medical staff? where if you make a mistake, it can lead to death. if they are deemed incapable, they have to be removed?

but all around a good proposal, and the Daft Invader will support you in this.

Category and strength are Social Justice, and Significant.

Unnecessary micro-management of a topic that should be handled at the national level (especially now that there's a resolution on Emigration Rights in place, so that anybody who's really unhappy about how their home nation handles matters is free to leave...).
We've already got several anti-discrimination resolutions, and one saying that we have to allow Unions: Those should be enough.

I think you'll find the end of the proposal states that breaches will be open to legal challenge fitting in with any judiciary system on a national level. And as for saying that Fair Dismissal is an issue that should be handled on a national level, you could be right, but the fact still remains that it isn't handled on a national level in many nations, so this resolution would streamline the whole process in one go.

To address CraigZone's valid point about emergency service workers, I think in a trade of that nature, incapability and gross misconduct would be the same thing.

Greetings. As a very new member, the Free State of Placidosis would like to enter this discussion with the following questions:

If it is granted that discrimination is often a qualitative offense that is difficult to prove, what are the proposed guidelines for establishing the first criterion in a quantative manner?


• Discrimination, on the basis of religion, political leanings, gender, race, sexual orientation, or age.

What will constitute evidence when no recorded evidence is available? Should the clause insist upon the presence, type or strength of evidence?


Second, given that the following clause explicitly allows for existing national law, and its pursuance:

Any dismissal or forced redundancy which falls under the rules for being unfair and unlawful shall be open for legal challenge to the fullest extent permitted in the nation of the employer.

is the clause in fact neccessary?

We await your gracious advice on this, our initial query.

Respectfully,
The Free State of Placidosis.

In addition to the various duplications that the St Edmundan Antarctic delegation has alluded to, does not the final clause:

Any dismissal or forced redundancy which falls under the rules for being unfair and unlawful shall be open for legal challenge to the fullest extent permitted in the nation of the employer.

render the entire proposal moot? While labelling a dismissal as "unfair and unlawful" means is that a court challenge can be brought, not one word in the proposal requires nations to enact laws forbidding such dismissals. In particular, if the honoured ambassador's response to Ambassador Sweynssen's question is to be regarded as having any weight at all, must it not imply that the proposal is in fact completely toothless?

Doesn't strike me as Social Justice, either. Needs work.

*sighs* sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fussy.

THis is complete and total unnecessary micromanagement. We will set our own laws on dismissal, which, at this time, is, "If your boss says you're fired, then you're fired no matter the reason." We will nto be forced to keep a sick person employed, doctor's excuse or no - anyone who is healthy enough to go to the hospital can just as easily come to work.

The Chaotic Order of Law Abiding Criminals votes NO and will encourage others to do the same.

*sighs* sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fussy.

Hack knows his stuff......

fussy none the less

fussy none the less

Well, if wanting proposals to be legal is "fussy," then count me in amongst the "fussy" ones.

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

My opinion on this proposal had been formed upon reading the first line, but I continued reading in the chance that my opinion would change.

I feel that your proposal does not belong in the UN; such laws should be handled by individal governments. It is not the UN's place to dictate how employers should handle the employment status of employees.

The Subistratica will not support this proposal should it reach voting.

Good day.

Patent Eros Tatriel
UN Representative for Subistratica

surely it's a good step forward if it defines and sets a decent bar as to what discrimination is?

I note that this thing would put employers in the ridiculous position of having to give an employee a disciplinary hearing if they were to fire them because said employee had committed a crime and then complained of discrimination.

Since discrimination is subjective, any employ ever fired could get away with complaining they were dismissed because of it, thus causing the company a significant amount of money and time with regards to having to hire personnel to set up these disciplinary hearings.

"This is, as with many other proposals, an issue for national rather than international law."

~ Galen Serrault, by appointment of Her Majesty Ambassador to the UN

A most excellent proposal. My government does not see how anyone -even the most rabid capitalist ideologues- could possibly oppose this. It sets out the bare minimum levels of protection which should, really, already be in place in any civilised country.


http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/674/christophebocobnd6.jpg
Christophe Boco (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Christophe_Boco),
Ambassador to the United Nations,
PDSRA

A most excellent proposal. My government does not see how anyone -even the most rabid capitalist ideologues- could possibly oppose this. It sets out the bare minimum levels of protection which should, really, already be in place in any civilised country.

Leaving aside the point that some of the nations represented here aren't civilized...

My government's opposition to this proposal is based not on its terms as such, which do not greatly exceed the protections that are already available to workers under our own laws, but on the principle that as any national government's decisions in such matters would have no direct effects on any other nations -- and the matter does not actually involve interactions between nations -- it simply isn't a matter upon which the UN should be trying to legislate in the first place.
The members of the United Nations are, after all, the actual nations -- as represented by their governments, no matter how those came to power -- rather than all the individual residents of all those countries. My government therefore believes that it is the rights of the member-nations (again, as represented by their governments), rather than the hypothetical rights of their individual inhabitants, with which this body should be concerning itself... And, as the UN is bound not to try outlawing or enforcing any ideology or form of government on its member-nations, we see it trying to tell the governments whose existence and differing natures it is supposed to respect how to run their countries' purely internal affairs as decidely presumptuous and even as rather hypocritical.

In any case, the more liberal nations will already have such rules in place -- as you pointed out -- so that this would have no effect on them; and the more repressive regimes would probably be able to find ways in which to work around these rules (Oh, yes, they could...), so that this would have no effect on them either; so that all it would do would be to force those governments who'd been trying to maintain intermediate positions towards one or the other of those extremes... And, with irritation at the "liberal" UN for meddling quite likely, that polarisiation might well not go in the direction for which you would hope...


Alfred Sweynsson MD,
Ambassador to the United Nations
for
The Protectorate of the St Edmundan Antarctic
(and still required to wear this confounded penguin costume...)

yeah, but surely the UN is meant to improve the conditions for peope in repressed nations?

yeah, but surely the UN is meant to improve the conditions for peope in repressed nations?

OOC: Maybe in RL, but that's not actually specified in NS...

Does "race" in the first clause refer to ethnicity or species? If the first, perhaps it could be more specifically worded.

-Plutonian Ambassador Raymond Gardner

Salutations,

We must voice our non-support of this resolution. This resolution attempts to legislate matters INTERNAL to our nation-state.

We feel that it is the responsibility of the UN to legislate on matters BETWEEN nation-states.

Our government is in power and we rule Iribathea how we see fit. The UN does not rule our nation.

We will not support this resolutation should it come to a vote.

Prince Khaseem Garbutt
UN Ambassador for the Kingdom of Iribathea

Ooh..I spy a loophole...