Saudi Arabia has better labour laws than UK

business Secretary Vince Cable and the ConDem Government obviously consider it a good idea to exempt thousands of small businesses (mainly offices and shops) from health, safety and welfare inspections.

However, this single measure shows the contempt this Government has for working people. For without unannounced inspections of such premises, the well-being 
of workers will be adversely affected.

Even worse, Mr Cable proposes scrapping workers’ automatic right to take cases of unfair dismissal to employment tribunals from April 2013, in the mistaken belief that strengthening the bosses’ right to hire and fire people without good cause will boost the economy.

At present, workers have a right to be heard at tribunals for alleged unfair dismissal if they have two years’ service with their employers.

Removal of this right can only lead to increased anxiety, insecurity and job uncertainty, which is not good for improved efficiency or worker performance and therefore will most certainly not boost economic recovery.

All this while bankers and executives, who have clearly been inefficient and performed badly, to put it mildly, have no such insecurity or fear of losing their jobs.

Such measures make me ashamed to be British, as the real underlying intent is to turn the clock back to the days of master and serf and poverty.

I spent time in Saudi Arabia teaching chemistry and 
chemical engineering to many young Saudi trainee operators, before the commissioning of a new £3.5bn petrochemical complex for a major oil company and the Saudi national oil company.

While in Saudi, I familiarised myself with the labour laws of this so-called reactionary nation. To my surprise, Saudi labour laws were better than ours and if the ConDems introduce their latest measures this country will be in the Dark Ages in comparison.