In June 2020, we added a post to Employment Law Worldview addressing the complicated situation employers are in when employees express – sometime respectfully, sometimes not – different, and indeed, opposite views on COVID-19 issues (e.g., legitimate public health emergency versus hoax or “plandemic”), racial justice (“Black Lives Matter” versus “All Lives Matter”), and politics … Continue Reading
Back in March we posted here a piece about dismissing to protect the employer’s corporate reputation. In that case the employer made a very difficult choice between the claimed (ultimately, actual) innocence of the employee and the harm which continuing to employ him might do if he turned out to be guilty. On the facts, … Continue Reading
“Loss of trust and confidence” is often pleaded as a basis for a fair dismissal, but rarely successfully. Employment Tribunals are astute to employers using it as a short cut to address performance or conduct issues without going through a proper procedure. After all, a dismissal without a fair procedure is going to be unfair … Continue Reading
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
“I told you so” has always been one of the least attractive things that one adult can say to another, but I did and I was right, so there. This concerns the question of whether an employer can make any claim under the CJRS for sums paid to employees in respect of their notice period. … Continue Reading
The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission. Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those … Continue Reading
We had several hundred sign-ups to our webinar on effective settlement agreements this week, so unfortunately did not get to deal with all the questions fed in through the chat box thingy on the screen. As promised, here are some of the answers – more to follow shortly.… Continue Reading
On top of the flexible working rules (see Parts 1-3), another piece of existing law likely to get a pandemic-related dusting-off in the months to come is our old friend whistleblowing. If you face what is otherwise a fairly clear redundancy situation because Covid-19 has gutted your employer’s market, what better way of upping the … Continue Reading
With the reopening process well underway in all 50 states, employers are implementing a variety of plans, policies, and protocols to minimize the potential for employee transmission of the coronavirus in the workplace. These plans – discussed in our Employer’s Guide to Return-to-Work Issues – include making physical changes to the workplace, rearranging employee schedules, … Continue Reading
So now that the slow movement back to workplaces has started, the next hot question will be this: “If I don’t want to go back in because I fear infection if I do, can my employer make me?” The short and absolutely definitively answer to this is no. And yes. It cannot compel you to … Continue Reading
In a previous blog, in a world before the coronavirus hit Europe, we noted the social elections that Belgian employers have to organise in 2020 [here] for the appointment of employee representatives to the Works Council and Health & Safety Committee. Being a representative of that sort (and also being a candidate for that role) … Continue Reading
The changes in the economy brought on by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), commonly known as the “coronavirus,” present challenges to employers trying to manage their greatest resource – employees. A cross-practice team involving our Tax Strategy & Benefits, Labor & Employment and Data Privacy & Security lawyers have published this alert that identifies some of … Continue Reading
You have tried to counsel, to mediate and to make every adjustment you possibly can, but in the end you have run into a single insurmountable fact about your employee with the attitude – you just can’t bear him any longer. He is the dragging anchor of your otherwise happy little ship and must be … Continue Reading
In January 2018 we wrote about Ribalda –v- Spain, a European Court of Human Rights case in which a number of supermarket employees were awarded compensation for breach of their privacy rights. They had been stealing quite handsomely from their employer over some months, as they freely admitted, but nonetheless thought it entirely improper that … Continue Reading
On October 8, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in three employment discrimination cases involving what protection, if any, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of, among other things, sex – affords against sexual orientation and gender identity-based discrimination. As we previously discussed … Continue Reading
Hot on the heels of a petition for new legislation aimed at preventing sexual harassment in the workplace, the Government has launched its consultation on the matter. The group behind the petition, called “This is Not Working”, is made up of unions, charities and women’s rights groups.… Continue Reading
We have cautioned earlier in this series about allowing your PSC contractors to become integrated into your business so far as their outward projection to clients is concerned – describing them as part of “our team”, giving them business cards, company phones or invitations to the client party, and so on. Integration is something you … Continue Reading
Majority Rules That Skycap’s Complaint About Bad Tipping Was Not Protected Concerted Activity The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) kicked off 2019 with an important decision that significantly narrowed the standard for when an individual employee’s conduct will be found to be “protected concerted activity” under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or … Continue Reading
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
The mid-term elections are still on people’s minds, as recounts and run-offs for federal congressional and state gubernatorial candidates are finally wrapping up. Meanwhile, and largely taking a media-coverage backseat to these high-profile races, many new state initiatives became law as a result of the mid-terms, three which involved legalizing marijuana for recreational or medical … Continue Reading
Apparently, said the Court of Appeal, the unlawful retention and circulation of confidential material by a union representative “was not a sufficient departure from good industrial relations practice” to justify his dismissal, a conclusion which initially seems little short of perverse, let alone an alarming comment on the state of industrial relations in the UK’s … Continue Reading
As we know, where an employee is engaged under one or a series of fixed-term contracts for a period of over 2 years, they acquire the right not to be unfairly dismissed. It is also the case that non-renewal of a fixed-term contract will count as a dismissal under the ERA 1996. An employee whose … Continue Reading
A useful little reminder from the Employment Appeal Tribunal last week that underneath all the practices and codes and assumptions which govern our conduct of HR matters, there is still The Law.… Continue Reading
Let’s get our terms straight to start with. Redundancy selection is where you have more than one person (say, A and B) carrying out a role for which the employer’s need has diminished, and then choosing which of them to let go. Bumping is where you have chosen the employee who is notionally redundant but … Continue Reading
