Contract of Employment

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Bureaucracy Relief Act – making it (slightly) easier to do business in Germany

On 1 January, the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (Viertes Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz – “BEG IV”) came into effect. This legislation introduces significant changes to requirements around the form of contracts in Germany with the objective of simplifying certain administrative processes, among them the completion of employment contracts. What is the status quo? Until the end of last … Continue Reading

Four year series of fixed-term contracts doesn’t automatically result in permanent employment (UK).

So you employ an individual on a series of fixed term contracts and after four years they seek a declaration that they should have been given a permanent employee job doing basically the same thing. Does that sound fair? Well, in Lobo v University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Employment Appeal Tribunal said, … Continue Reading

Federal Court Enjoins Federal Trade Commission’s Rule Prohibiting Non-Competition Agreements (US)

In January 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a sweeping rule that, with limited exceptions (such as for highly compensated executives or in connection with the sale of a business), would prohibit employers from entering into post-employment non-competition arrangements with workers. (See our post here.) Under the proposed rule, an agreement between an … Continue Reading

Fourth Circuit Holds Firm Against Expansion of Religion-Based Defenses to Discrimination (US)

Lonnie Billard was a well-loved and decorated drama and English teacher at Charlotte Catholic High School (CCHS) in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He was named Teacher of the Year in 2012 after serving the Catholic high school’s students for eleven years. Two years later, CCHS told Mr. Billard he was not welcome back as a … Continue Reading

Knew this would happen, Part 2 – predicted problems persist in working patterns legislation (UK)

Back in February I offered here some thoughts on the main practical problems implicit in what was then the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill.  It was a mess, missing explanations of key concepts and grossly over-engineered for its objectives. That makes it all the more depressing to report that it has now received Royal … Continue Reading

The inexplicable not explained in UK government’s Response to non-competition consultation

If you are prepared to accept “bold” as a substitute for “reasoned and sensible”, then there is much to like in the government’s formal response to its 2020 consultation on restrictive covenants, which was finally published last month.  It is this which seeks to explain the thinking behind the proposal we covered here – to … Continue Reading

Knew this would happen – entirely predictable problems with new working patterns Bill (UK)

Last week the government voiced its support for the new Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, the endeavour of MP Scott Benton to combat “one-sided flexibility”, where “workers are on stand-by for work which never comes”, it says in the BEIS press release.  This is a belated by-product of the Taylor Good Work Report in … Continue Reading

A brief and not excessively taxing guide to quiet-quitting (UK)

If you are in the habit of taking your life-advice from Tik Tok, you will have seen encouragement recently to join the “quiet-quitters”. These are the Gen Z workers who make a conscious decision to do the bare minimum at work, those who have “left the building” mentally (and if hybrid working, also physically) but … Continue Reading

UAE: what next in working week changes

The UAE authorities announced late last year that in Federal Government departments from 1 January 2022 the working week would be reduced to four and a half days, with the weekend running from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. The authorities also confirmed that all schools and universities would operate from Monday to Friday on the … Continue Reading

Belgium takes first steps towards improved work-life balance in new Labour Deal

After the federal majority parties failed to conclude an agreement on Friday on a series of labour market reforms, they finally broke the deadlock overnight on Monday this week. In an early fail on the work:life balance front, the new measures were unveiled at a presumably sparsely-attended press conference at 2.30am. Bleary-eyed Ministers praised the … Continue Reading

Illinois Legislature Passes Bill Impacting Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation Covenants: What Employers Need to Know (US)

Squire Patton Boggs Summer Associate Gabrielle Martin summarizes substantial changes to Illinois’ Freedom to Work Act included in recently-passed legislation which will impose significant new requirements and limitations on the use of non-competition and non-solicitation covenants in Illinois. Joining an emerging trend among the states to place statutory limits on the ability of employers to … Continue Reading

Not seeking references on new hires — help or heresy? (UK)

Interesting question from a client the other day  – what if we simply gave up asking for references on new hires?  Just stopped it altogether and so saved all the HR time and delay and cost implicit in the reference-checking process?  Instinctively your response is not to be so daft, everyone always seeks references so … Continue Reading

Post-lockdown working, Part 5 – doing your homework (UK)

The logical extension from the discovery that all or most or your staff can work from home without anything catastrophic happening is to ask yourself whether you actually need an office in the first place.  Obviously it has potential advantages in terms of staff cohesion and corporate identity, but decisions are being made across the … Continue Reading

And now for something completely different – EU abuse principles sink self-serving contract variation

Quite a fun little case on TUPE this week, if you like that sort of thing (and on the upside, even if you don’t, at least it has nothing to do with COVID-19). Regulation 4(4) of TUPE states that TUPE-related changes to terms of employment are void in most circumstances.  This has long been read … Continue Reading

Employer’s Guide to Return-to-Work Issues: COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (US)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale.  In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading

“The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television” – squaring lockdown with the Job Retention Scheme (UK)

A well-known term of the CJRS is that the employee shouldn’t while on furlough do any work for the employer or provide any services to it.  A simple enough proposition, one might think, despite the unknown pundit whose wise words appear above, but as with much of this Scheme, once you get down into the … Continue Reading

EEOC Withdraws Policy Against Mandatory Arbitration of Workplace Discrimination Claims (US)

On December 17, 2019, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) rescinded its 22-year-old policy statement disapproving of mandatory employment arbitration agreements for workplace bias claims.  The agency’s 2-1 decision to retract this policy was in direct response to numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings that support the use of such agreements. … Continue Reading

Sixth Circuit Eliminates Contractual Limitations Periods For Title VII Claims (US)

Our colleagues Colter Paulson and Justin DiCharia at the Sixth Circuit Appellate Blog (which covers, as you may have guessed, developments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit) authored the post below discussing the Sixth Circuit’s recent decision in a case in which the Court was tasked with deciding whether an employer … Continue Reading

Changes in Polish employment laws bring new costs:benefits equation

This Autumn brings quite a few changes for Polish employers. Not only do new pension plans called PPK (Pracownicze Plany Kapitałowe) became a reality for the biggest Polish employers in the fourth quarter of 2019, but the Labour Code and Code of Civil Procedure see changes too. Some of them result in a need to … Continue Reading

Illinois Enacts New Law In Response To #MeToo Movement (US)

On August 9, 2019, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law the Illinois Workplace Transparency Act (“WTA”), imposing new requirements and modifying existing laws in ways that will impact nearly all Illinois employers – and may be a signal of things to come in other US states.  The WTA aims to address concerns raised through … Continue Reading
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