NLRB General Counsel Expands Paths for Settling ULP Cases, and Realigns Board Practice for Seeking Expanded Remedies (US)

By Will Kishman on May 20, 2025 Posted in NLRB, Unfair Labor Practice

The National Labor Relations Board’s top enforcement official has issued important guidance, which should make it easier for parties to settle unfair labor practice charges, and which narrows the situations where the Board will seek unique expanded remedies.

Background

From 2021 to 2024, the Board significantly changed the remedies it sought in ULP cases, and it also changed the conditions it required parties to accept in order to settle those cases. At default, the National Labor Relations Act permits the Board to seek and award “make whole” relief. This means the Board cannot, for example, award punitive damages or emotional distress damages. Historically, in cases where an employer has committed a ULP by discharging an employee, the Board typically has awarded the employee backpay and required the employer to reinstate them.

Handling Workplace Investigations Webinar – Follow-up Questions Answered, Part 2 (UK)

By Eleanor Dodsworth on May 20, 2025 Posted in Investigation, Workplace Investigations

Here are a few more of the questions – and our outline answers – following our recent webinar on Handling Workplace Investigations.

Does the notetaking at investigation meetings need to be verbatim?

No. There is no requirement for meeting notes to be a verbatim record of everything that has been said – not only can this make any meeting notes incredibly long and tedious, but often it can mean you lose the key points made amongst all the other chatter that has been captured. The meeting notes should seek to provide a comprehensive summary of what has been said, capturing the key points. You can put particularly telling choices of words or phrases in quotation marks if the exact terms of the evidence are seen as important in order to show that that was what was actually said, not your summary or paraphrasing of it.

If a meeting takes place virtually, do you recommend using the transcribe function to help with note-taking?

We would recommend caution before adopting this approach. Although such technology can make things simpler and it can potentially save you having to arrange for a separate note-taker to be present, in our experience it is still not 100% accurate. It also does still mean that you end up with reams of notes and it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees when it comes to the key points that were discussed. See our previous blog for a fuller discussion of the issues to consider when using voice recognition technology to take notes of meetings. Whether your meeting is physical or virtual, beware of the possibility that the employee may be recording it covertly, perhaps even in the face of clear instructions not to do so. As a result, it is never safe to rely on the transition from transcribed notes to a polished final product as somewhere to “refine” what you said.

Spotlight on: Changes to Childcare and Parental Leave

By Julia Yeo and Li Lian Eu on May 19, 2025 Posted in Childcare, Employment Law, Parental leave

Japan – Amendments to the Childcare and Family Care Leave Act took effect on 1 April 2025, with further amendments to take effect on 1 October 2025.

Singapore – Amendments to the Child Development Co-Savings Act 2001 took effect on 1 April 2025.

Indonesia – Law No. 4 of 2024 regarding Maternal and Child Welfare During the First Thousand Days of Life took effect on 2 July 2024 (Law 4/2024).

Australia – Amendments to the unpaid parental leave (UPL) provisions in the Fair Work Act 2009(Cth) (FW Act) took effect on 1 July 2023.

Belgium’s Private Investigations Act: Is Your Internal Investigations Service in Focus?

By Marga Caproni on May 14, 2025 Posted in Investigation, Workplace Investigations

In December 2024, the new Private Investigations Act came into force. The Act replaced the Private Detectives Act of 1991 and was long overdue, considering how much has changed in the world of private investigations. The 1991 law focused on detectives as sole practitioners, think Columbo or Magnum P.I., a world of uncertain ethics, periodic violence and grubby raincoats, most of which no longer exists outside the small screen. The new Act aims to modernise the applicable legal framework in light of new investigation methods and bring it into line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), though sadly not to address the traditional private detective issues of implausible dialogue and unhappy dress choices.

The Act imposes a number of obligations on employers instructing investigations on their employees, and we will discuss these changes at length in future blogs, but there is a more pressing issue we need to deal with first, and that regards your internal investigations service. The Act extends its scope from solo private detectives to all types of investigations companies but more importantly, also to internal investigations services. An internal investigations service is defined by the Act as ‘any service organised by a natural or legal person for its own purposes for the systematic performance of private investigation activities’. This definition is very wide and has prompted the legislator to exclude a number of roles and functions, such as lawyers, bailiffs and auditors.

Handling Workplace Investigations Webinar – Follow-up Questions Answered, Part 1 (UK)

By Fiona Sellers on May 13, 2025 Posted in Investigation, Workplace Investigations

During our recent webinar on Handling Workplace Investigations, we received several questions via the chat facility that we will address in a number of blogs over the next few weeks.

First off, we have some questions about who should carry out a workplace investigation.

If your policy states that a different manager will do the investigation versus the disciplinary/grievance hearing, should you follow that?

As a general rule, yes.

The first thing to say is that you should always seek to comply with your own policies and procedures unless there is a good reason for not doing so. Although a failure to comply will not in itself automatically render any subsequent decision unfair, a Tribunal will take such matters into consideration when considering the fairness of the overall process. If the policy is contractual (which we would generally advise against), a failure to comply could also give an employee grounds to claim breach of contract.

Leaving aside your policy, the Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures makes it clear that when it comes to misconduct cases, where practicable, different people should carry out the investigation and disciplinary hearing. This is to help ensure the process is objective and reduce the scope for allegations of bias and impartiality through the perception of being both prosecution and judge. Acas’s separate Guidance on Conducting Workplace Investigations also recommends that a different person should handle each stage of the process.

UK Business Immigration – The Immigration White Paper is here

By Annabel Mace, May Cheung and Carine Elliott on May 12, 2025 Posted in Business Immigration

The government’s long awaited White Paper Restoring Control over the Immigration System has been published today. As part of the Home Secretary’s foreword in the Paper, she states that the plan will “restore order, control and fairness to the system, bring down net migration and promote economic growth”. The proposals signal a marked tightening of the UK’s approach to both legal and illegal migration, or so it says, as the Paper lacks much of the detail which would be required to substantiate that.

It is not yet clear how or when these new measures will be introduced (they are described as ‘plans’ throughout the Paper). As ever, the devil will be in the detail but we have summarised the key points likely to affect UK businesses, with our commentary below:

Germany: Bureaucracy out, Digital in? The new Government’s plans for labour and employment

By Tanja Weber, Lutz Hoheisel, Dagmar Nolden, Laura Sparschuh and Anna-Maria Hesse on May 12, 2025 Posted in Contract of Employment, Minimum Wage, Tax, Working Time

After long negotiations between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the parties agreed to establish a coalition to form the new government and Friedrich Merz was eventually elected on 6 May 2025 as new Chancelor of Germany. The coalition agreement published by the parties offers insight into their agenda. While not the primary focus of the agreement, there are several initiatives that aim to address certain labour and employment issues of relevance to the German market.

California Court of Appeal Affirms Enforceability of Prospective Meal Period Waivers (US)

By Gabrielle Martin on May 5, 2025 Posted in California, Compliance, Employment Law

In a ruling that clarifies a previously unsettled area of California employment law, a California Court of Appeal affirmed the enforceability of written, prospective meal period waivers for shifts between five and six hours long. The April 21, 2025 decision in Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc. explained that advanced “blanket” waivers are valid under the law if freely revocable and absent evidence of coercion or unconscionability. For California employers, Bradsbery provides much-needed guidance on how to properly implement meal period waivers in compliance with the law.

Eighth Circuit Holds Minnesota Human Rights Act Does Not Apply to Out-of-State, Remote Employee: What All Employers Need to Know (US)

By Gabrielle Martin on April 30, 2025 Posted in Employment Law, Remote Work

Although the meteoric rise in remote work prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have plateaued and may even be scaling back as employers press return-to-office policies, the reality is that many employees still work, and will continue to work, remotely. As employment law is largely legislated at the state level, the variation in how state laws apply to employers with employees working or reporting into offices in different states can present real challenges. In its April 9, 2025 decision in Kuklenski v. Medtronic USA, Inc., No. 24-1310 (8th Cir. 2025), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit addressed these issues when analyzing whether an employee who did not reside or work in Minnesota could nonetheless bring a claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (“MHRA”).

New Immigration Registration Rule for Foreign Nationals (US)

By Luisa Koidl on April 18, 2025 Posted in Immigration, Visa

Effective April 11, 2025, certain foreign nationals in the US must register online with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while others are already registered based on their status. This requirement is based on a 1940 law that mandates every foreign national who is in the US for 30 days must be registered and fingerprinted and DHS issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) to update the registration regulations, introducing a new online process for unregistered foreign nationals.