View: In the middle of political party conference season

Endless events, meetings in the margins; conversations with those who govern us, and those who would govern. It’s a key part of the political calendar and a vital opportunity to ensure voices and concerns are heard by those who can effect change. FSB uses engagement at all of these events to ensure that the importance of small businesses to the entire economy is fully understood, and to highlight anything that might do damage to this vital sector.

As well as FSB attending all of these conferences, trade unions have also been present and active as they seek to take advantage of the changes delivered by the elections to both the Stormont Assembly and Westminster. Whilst trade unions play an important role in industrial relations, recent months have seen a resurgence in use of their collective voice and power to cause disruption as a tool to apply pressure as they lobby to get a better deal for their members. Public transport, council services, schools, hospitals, airlines are just a few of the sectors where we have seen a variety of strikes and action-short-of strikes as trade union members navigate disputes with their employers that haven’t been solved through negotiations.

While there is a lot of talk about possible changes that the new Labour government at Westminster might make to employment law, none have yet been published. By contrast, however, a massive set of proposals to reform workplaces in Northern Ireland was published by the Department for the Economy, and released as a 160 page ‘Good Jobs’ Employment Rights Bill Consultation document over the summer holidays. Unfortunately, the timing of the consultation’s release means that a great many businesses are entirely unaware of it and of the impending closing date.

To be clear FSB commends the Department for the Economy for its commitment to fostering good jobs in Northern Ireland and has welcomed a number of the proposed changes to employment law, particularly those that aim to bring us up to date with employment laws in Great Britain. These changes have the potential to create a more equitable job market, benefiting both employers and employees. However, the welcome objective of seeing good terms and conditions being made available for employees must not come at the price of making Northern Ireland overly bureaucratic and uncompetitive to investment and growth. Therefore, whilst those parts of the proposals that bring a sensible updating of NI employment laws are welcome, there is great concern at the those that plan to extend trade union activity into some of our smallest businesses.

The consultation seeks to understand barriers to trade union officials accessing workplaces and explore how such access could be extended. It also seeks views on introducing collective sectoral bargaining, and on the ‘threshold number’ of employees required for a trade union to seek formal recognition, suggesting that this threshold could be slashed from the current 21 employees down to just 10. FSB has been engaging with its members to understand their views on the proposals and there is clearly alarm at the range and extent of changes being proposed.

Small businesses are widely recognised to be more akin to ‘families’ than workforces. Relationships between the business owner – the person who has staked their capital to pursue a vision and create a successful enterprise – and the employees are sensitive and collaborative. Against that backdrop, the prospect of legislating to allow third parties to enter the smallest workplaces risks doing serious damage to relationships and damage to businesses and is causing grave concern.

These proposals for additional powers and reach, especially into smaller businesses, would do nothing to enhance job creation or improve the quality of jobs in Northern Ireland, and we do not accept that they are required nor, indeed, would be helpful to maintain a fair and productive working environment.

FSB itself was formed fifty years ago this month, precisely to play the role of standing up for small businesses in the face of damaging action by government. Back in 1974, the government of the day landed a brutal blow on the self-employed and small businesses by almost doubling their National Insurance bills. FSB emerged in response, to give the sector effective voice to ensure government understands the risks associated with actions they might consider and, where necessary, to resist those actions. There remain just a few days for businesses to search for the ‘Good Jobs’ Employment Rights consultation on the Department for the Economy website and ensure they add their voice to the response as we seek to shape the Department’s plans to deliver good jobs whilst preventing damage being done to businesses in the process.