On December 7, 2018, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit unanimously held in Hustvet v. Allina Health System that an employer did not unlawfully terminate an employee who refused to receive a rubella vaccination. The plaintiff, a healthcare specialist working with potentially vulnerable patients, requested an accommodation exempting … Continue Reading
Today we cross to the Emerald Isle for a recent lesson on bullying and negligence issued by the Irish Court of Appeal. Though not binding on the UK Courts, it is hard to see that any very different principles could apply here.… Continue Reading
If you have been one of the many wilting at work in the Great British Heatwave of 2018 (or what I believe many other countries just call “summer”), panic not – Acas has issued new guidance to help ease your working day. Or not. Including such gems as “check with your local train company” to … Continue Reading
With a clear link between increased employee wellbeing (both in terms of physical and mental health) and reduced sickness absence, many employers may use renewed New Year ambitions to adopt or promote employee wellbeing programmes. Businesses have introduced measures including step challenges with free pedometers, fruit ‘desk drops’ and health monitoring stations in the workplace. … Continue Reading
As we mentioned in our previous blog, the Farmer/ Stephenson “Thriving at Work” Report has made a number of recommendations as to steps that businesses, the public sector and the Government can take to increase mental health and wellbeing within the workplace, with the aim not only of increasing the standard of mental health but … Continue Reading
17 March marks World Sleep Day. According to RAND Europe, a lack of sleep among UK workers is costing the economy up to £40 billion a year (equivalent to almost 2% of GDP). Sleep deprivation leads to a higher mortality risk over the long term, as well as lower productivity levels and increased risk of … Continue Reading
On January 13, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued its latest guidelines for employers to help them keep their workplaces “free of retaliation, including retaliation against employees who engage in activity protected under the 22 whistleblower laws” that OSHA enforces. While adoption of OSHA’s recommendations is not mandatory, they are intended to … Continue Reading
On September 9, 2016, the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) published new guidelines for approving settlements between employers and employees in whistleblower cases to ensure that those agreements do not contain terms that could be interpreted to restrict future whistleblowing. OSHA reviews settlements between employees and employers to ensure that they are … Continue Reading
An employee of West Australian Newspapers Limited (WAN) who moonlighted for Uber was caught in the act when, one Saturday night, he picked up a WAN manager. Despite being well and truly busted, the employee (who worked night shifts as WAN’s newspaper machinist) denied having any affiliation with Uber, saying that his wife had the … Continue Reading
The Guardian Online reports the case of Paris resident M. Frederic Desnard last week. He is claiming over £280,000 in compensation for a nervous breakdown allegedly caused by his managerial job at French perfumiers Interparfum. However, no tale of excessive pressure and punishing working hours, this one. Instead, M.Desnard claims that his job was so … Continue Reading
A recent case before the French Supreme Court acts as a stark warning to employers of the importance of complying with the requirements in the French Labour Code to display their internal rules in the workplace. After the discovery of empty bottles of alcohol in the employees’ changing room, an employer required one of its … Continue Reading
Don’t trouble yourself with this. It’s only a page long and the messages for employers are shorter still:- (i) many “legal highs” are actually illegal, but the distinction is broadly irrelevant for workplace purposes. You should include them as barred under your drugs and alcohol policy, but focus on their impact on the employee’s behaviours … Continue Reading
Statistics show (and if they don’t, then they should) that by far the most despised piece of marketing by any UK law firm is the traditional desperate mailing sent out by Employment teams warning clients of the legal perils circling like sharks around the Christmas party. Within that single innocent event, burbles the flier, lies … Continue Reading
Health and safety laws rolled out around Australia since 2012 have imposed a new positive duty on company officers to exercise due diligence to ensure their “person conducting a business or undertaking” (PCBU – usually the corporate employer) is compliant. The term “officer” extends beyond the PCBU’s executives, directors and secretaries to any person who: … Continue Reading
A recent decision in the South Australian Industrial Relations Court has shown that an occupational safety and health (OSH) legislative compliance audit can significantly reduce the penalty imposed following an OSH incident by demonstrating a commitment to improve safety. In Boland v Trading Metals Pty Ltd [2015] SAIRC 30, the respondent was charged with breaching … Continue Reading
No job within the Square Mile is immune from its own stresses or strains. As the City of London Corporation’s Business Healthy blog notes (https://www.businesshealthy.org/blog/), the recent economic climate has exacerbated these through the invariable requirement that businesses reduce their cost base without adversely affecting their profits. Undoubtedly, this drive to do more with less … Continue Reading
If you drive from your home to your office and then your office to your client, only the second trip counts as working time for the purposes of the EU Working Time Directive. But what if you don’t have an office and so drive straight from your home to your first customer and at the … Continue Reading
In Newbound –v- Thames Water the Court of Appeal has recently upheld the ruling of the Employment Tribunal that Mr Newbound had been unfairly dismissed for gross misconduct despite his breaching company health and safety rules. The case highlights the difficulties faced by employers trying to enforce compliance with new health and safety procedures, but … Continue Reading
At last! A holiday pay ruling that doesn’t make your head spin or leave you with more questions when you put it down than you had before reading it. Mr Plumb was off sick from his work at Duncan Print Group from April 2010 until the termination of his employment in February 2014. He did … Continue Reading
Ruby Wax is a well-known and respected campaigner for mental health issues. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to open my Times Online (behind a paywall) this week to the headline “Don’t tell your boss if you’re mentally ill, Ruby Wax advises“. I was sure that this was the Times Online taking a quotation out of context to … Continue Reading
Are you struggling how to know how to calculate holiday pay at the moment? Do you add in commissions or overtime or not? If you need some reasonably definitive guidance on these issues, perhaps I could steer you firmly away from the very recent Acas publication on the point, which with the best will in … Continue Reading
Time for a quick look at the Guidance issued by the Department of Work & Pensions on the new Fit for Work (FfW) Scheme https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fit-for-work-guidance. There are two ways of looking at this. First, that the Guidance is a gallant attempt to explain in simple terms how this Scheme may (I use the word advisedly) … Continue Reading
There has been a long running battle in Australia about whether an employer, when testing for drug use, can ask employees to provide a urine sample. Many unions have resisted the introduction of urine testing, arguing that saliva testing is sufficient and, as such, the process of sampling urine is an unjustified invasion of privacy. … Continue Reading
In the first two parts of this series (part 1, part 2) we looked at how the Courts still regard the 2002 judgment in Hatton –v- Sutherland as the definitive statement on the law for liability for stress-induced psychiatric injury in the workplace. However, although still commanding respect in relation to breach of duty and … Continue Reading
