Pub staff must work longer to claim unfair dismissal

It applies to any employee contract that begins on or after that date – staff who started before then will still fall under last year’s legislation of having to work one year of continuous service. However, discrimination claims will not be applicable.

Employment lawyer Matt Jenkins, partner at Morgan Cole, said: “This is going to extend the ability for licensees to terminate underperforming employees without facing unfair dismissal claims.

“However the danger is that because licensees are always so busy and a lot of them have many staff, they can lose track of when each employee contract began.”

The Government is also planning to introduce a fee for employees wanting to put forward a case for an employment tribunal. Currently employees only need to fill in a form. It is proposed that they will have to pay £250 to highlight a case and £1,000 before the hearing.

Jenkins said that it “could discourage people from bringing claims forward” as he has seen many cases where employees make a claim knowing they won’t win but may get some money out of the employer.