Managing Sickness Absence Webinar – Follow-up Questions Answered, Part 2 (UK)

Here are a couple more of the questions – and our outline answers – following our recent webinar on Managing Sickness Absence.

What advice would you give where an employee wants to return to work but the employer does not think they are able to?

If an employer has concerns about an employee’s fitness to return to work, the first step should be to obtain medical advice (usually from your own medical advisers in the first instance) to help you determine this. This is most commonly an issue for mental rather than physical health conditions, where the condition itself may be leading the employee to a distorted view of their own fitness. If that condition has led to difficult behaviours towards colleagues before the absence, the employer may also be nervous about a repetition and so may be far more cautious about a return than would be the case for a physical ailment. An unquestioning acceptance of the employee’s fitness to work could create later liability if a premature return leads to a relapse or some claim by another employee who is harmed as a result.

Managing Sickness Absence Webinar – Follow-up Questions Answered, Part 1 (UK)

By Sarah Wilkinson on December 18, 2024 Posted in Sick Leave, Sickness, Webinars

During our recent webinar on Managing Sickness Absence, we received a number of questions that we will address in a few blogs over the next few days.

First off, a question on obtaining medical advice for employees who have been absent from work due to sickness.

For long-term absences, whose advice should be followed – a company doctor, OH or the employee’s GP?

US Senate Rejects NLRB Chairman McFerran Nomination; NLRB Poised To Switch To Republican Majority in Early 2025 (US)

By Daniel Pasternak on December 13, 2024 Posted in News, NLRB, Unions

Not long after the November elections, we discussed potential changes that could come at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) after inauguration day on January 20, 2025. Although it is a virtual certainty that President-Elect Trump will very quickly remove Jennifer Abruzzo from her position as the NLRB’s current General Counsel (the agency’s chief prosecutor who selects the cases to be heard by the Board), it was unclear whether the composition of the five-member NLRB would change in early 2025 or whether a flip in the Board majority to Republican appointees would be delayed until August 2026.

We now know the answer to that question.

UK Home Office announces new immigration compliance crackdown

By Annabel Mace and May Cheung on December 6, 2024 Posted in Business Immigration

Under growing pressure to tackle high net migration figures, the Home Office has published plans to clamp down on visa abuse and exploitation to be implemented through amendments to the Employment Rights Bill. These are aimed at “rogue” employers (particularly within the care sector) but are likely to affect any UK employer with a licence to sponsor overseas workers.

What are the key changes?:

US State Law Roundup – 2024 Year-end Update

By Shennan Harris, Ariel Cohen and Margaret Lombardo on December 3, 2024 Posted in Employment, Employment Law, State Law Updates

State and local legislatures have been active throughout 2024 passing laws and ordinances that will impact employers of all sizes and all industries.

Click HERE for our summary of these laws and related developments in Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and elsewhere!

As always, our team will continue to monitor these and other state employment law developments. If you have questions or need guidance, please contact your SPB lawyer. Happy New Year!

Government’s Better Regulation Committee savages UK Employment Rights Bill provisions

By David Whincup on December 1, 2024 Posted in Employment, Flexible Working, Harassment, Unfair dismissal

Here’s a sentence you don’t see very often, but hats off to the Regulatory Policy Committee for its excoriating review last week of the thinking behind the new Employment Rights Bill.

The RPC is a body set up by the Labour government in 2009 as part of its Better Regulation Framework to ensure that the potential impacts of UK legislation are properly considered before it is enacted. Its report on the Employment Rights Bill is a masterclass in measured understatement, but the underlying message is very clear – large parts of the Bill are currently without demonstrated objective justification or consideration of their possible consequences for employers and the wider economy. To be clear, the RPC is not saying that those provisions are necessarily inappropriate, merely that there is somewhere between little and no evidence either that change is required in those respects or that the path taken by the Bill is the best of the available options if it is. The supporting impact assessments for eight out of 23 measures in the Bill and as a whole are expressly and repeatedly described by the RPC as rushed and “not fit for purpose”, with a number further described as either weak or very weak.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone except Angela Rayner, since the subjugation of many of the measures in the Bill to political expediency and dogma has been obvious from the start. Anyone else whose baby had received such an immediate, comprehensive and laughably predictable shoeing would be in hiding by now, and so far the silence from the Department of Business and Trade on this has been noticeable.

Electronic Travel Authorisations for visitors to the UK extended to most non-EU nationalities from today

By Magali Ferreyra on November 27, 2024 Posted in Business Immigration

As part of its drive to digitise the UK border and immigration system, with effect from today, the UK government has now opened the process for obtaining an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for eligible non-European nationals who must hold an ETA if travelling to or through the UK from 8 January next year.

Disciplinary Dismissals: Spanish Supreme Court Issues Landmark Ruling

By Ignacio Regojo on November 19, 2024 Posted in Disciplinary, Dismissal

On 18 November 2024, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling with significant implications for labour and employment relations in Spain.

Previously, under the Workers’ Statute, employers were not required to hold a prior hearing for employees in disciplinary dismissal cases, unless the employee was unionized or a legal representative of the employees.

However, with this new ruling, effective from November 19, 2024, the Supreme Court has updated its position. Employers are now obliged to give employees the opportunity to respond to the allegations against them before proceeding with a disciplinary dismissal (a “prior hearing”). This decision is based on the need to directly apply Article 7 of Convention 158 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) of 1982, in force in Spain since 1986.

A failure to comply with this requirement may lead to disciplinary dismissals being declared unfair (“improcedente”) by the courts if challenged by the employee. This could result in the employer being ordered to pay potentially significant compensation to the dismissed employee (33 days of salary per year worked, with a maximum limit of 24 monthly payments).

We recommend that all employers operating in Spain review and update their internal dismissal procedures to ensure compliance with this new legal requirement.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Trump Immigration 2.0: What the Election Means for U.S. Employers

By Luisa Koidl, Samuel Mudrick and Gregory A. Wald on November 19, 2024 Posted in Employment Law, Immigration, Immigration Rules, Visa

Employers should expect changes to their immigration and hiring enforcement regimes under a second Trump administration. Based on campaign rhetoric and promises, those changes will include emboldened and focused immigration policies to remove millions of undocumented workers and tighten the legal immigration system. Below is a summary of expected employment-related immigration changes and practical steps U.S. employers can take to prepare for the next four years.