Since the introduction of Compromise Agreements in 1993 employers have been given the perfect opportunity to ignore the rights of the employee and force them into taking a gamble. Once an employer has decided that he has had enough of an employee he can serve on them a Compromise Agreement and effectively break the mutual trust one would expect in the employee / employer relationship. This effectively forces the employee into either accepting the money being offered by the employer to allow them to breach the employment contract or take a gamble and take the employer to the Employment Tribunal.
Even if the employee decides to take the employer to task over them deciding to opt out of the contract that you both entered with good will and intention on creating a lasting relationship, it is likely to cost them. The employee needs to estimate how long it may take them to get a new job because that may be the biggest factor in the value of their claim; even then they are still expected to fund their own legal costs not the employer.
Why should employees be forced to gamble when it is the employer who creates the situation? Once an employer decides that they wish to bypass the rights of an employee then surely they must pay for that right. Should the basis of every Compromise Agreement be a compensation payment that reflects the period that an average person may be out of work or should employers be allowed to decide when they wish to opt out and walk away without paying a fair amount of compensation for an employee giving up all their legal rights by signing the Compromise Agreement?
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