Two recent cases on how Employment Tribunals should handle the inappropriate conduct of proceedings by claimants have shed some useful light on their more punitive powers. Both decisions made clear that the ET is far more interested in getting to a fair trial of the issue despite such conduct than in thumping claimants because of it, but equally, that there are limits.
Food for thought – can UK gig economy workers go on strike?
If there was ever any doubt that Trade Unions target their dates for industrial action to cause maximum inconvenience (think train drivers striking on the day of major sporting events, or binmen striking at Christmas), then Deliveroo and other food delivery company drivers striking on Valentines Day surely put that to bed. Scant consolation for couples forced to head to the kitchen and do it themselves instead of reaching for the take-away menu for their romantic diner a deux.
Union Strike Activity Surged in 2023: More of the Same in 2024? (US)
Hollywood studios, the Big Three automakers and Starbucks were just some of the employers impacted by a remarkable surge in labor strikes called by unions in 2023. Nearly 350 strikes took place in 2023 – the most in two decades.
According to data released by Bloomberg Law,[1] 345 strikes were called in 2023, along with two employer-initiated lockouts, for a total of 347 work stoppages impacting more than a half-million workers. The last time there were that many strikes in a year was 2003, though neither year topped strike activity between 1990 and 1994, when there were more than 500 strikes each year.
Workplace harassment in Germany (Part 2): a checklist for your workplace investigations
“We conduct investigations in line with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Easy for you to say, but what does that mean in practice?
In part one, Laura Sparschuh discussed the options available to employees in Germany when reporting cases of workplace harassment. In this second article, Anna-Maria Hesse and Laura highlight what employers need to consider when it comes to investigating workplace harassment. This question is very relevant, not least because when it comes to disciplining any employee found guilty of such conduct, it is necessary that the investigation has been carried out properly. We have drawn up a checklist to provide a rough guide.
Belgium: Employee training – you need a plan (and fast)!
Faced with the inconvenient truth that we’ll all need to work longer to keep state pensions affordable, the Belgian government is focusing more intensely on employee training to ensure that the country’s workforce remains up-to-date and equipped with employable professional skill sets throughout their career.
U.S. Supreme Court Holds SOX Whistleblowers Not Required to Show Retaliatory Intent (US)
On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided in Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC, et al. that employees bringing whistleblower claims against their employer under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) need not prove that, in taking adverse action against them, their employer intended to retaliate against them due to their protected whistleblowing activity. The case is No. 22-660.
Employment tribunal fees consultation, V.2 – yes but why? (UK)
The ancient art of fiddling while Rome burns is obviously still flourishing in government, as witness the release last week of a new consultation paper on fees for Employment Tribunal claimants. My colleague Alexander Bradbury has the official line here.
We have been this way before. The ET started charging claim and hearing fees in 2013, to a very mixed press. Employers were broadly unmoved on the grounds that claimants having some financial skin in the game would discourage what they saw as trivial or vexatious claims, i.e. almost all of them. Employees and unions were unimpressed, not for that reason but because there is no means of deterring spurious claims through a fee which does not also deter good-faith applications for small but (for the employee) potentially still very important sums of money. Claim numbers did drop significantly (over 50%) when fees were introduced, but it would take an extraordinarily unreconstructed employer to say that these were only the claims which should never have been brought in the first place. The serious adverse impact on access to justice for the less well-off or in relation to smaller or non-monetary claims could not be seriously disputed, though the government still took the opportunity to try. That fees regime ran until 2017 when the Supreme Court delivered the resounding humiliation of declaring it unlawful and requiring them all to be repaid.
So what has changed now?
Why You May Have to Comply with California’s New Noncompete – With a February 14 Deadline
Not surprisingly, California is once again passing employment laws that impact companies beyond the state. Specifically, the Golden State is continuing its war against noncompete clauses to conform to case law stating that such clauses are void for any employee working in California — even if the employment contract containing the noncompete was signed in another state. Moreover, there is a February 14, 2024 deadline to inform employees with void clauses that their noncompete clauses are unenforceable. Our colleagues at the Global IP & Technology Law Blog have addressed the laws in question in more detail. Please give it a read.
New Consultation on UK Employment Tribunal Fees
In 2013, the Government introduced fees for bringing claims to the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Although they were then abolished following a Supreme Court ruling in 2017, the issue is back in the spotlight and the subject of fee-rocious debate once more following the publication of a Government consultation into their re-introduction.
Belgium – the synergy between pension contributions and the severance indemnity
If you terminate an employee in Belgium you will often need to pay a severance indemnity. This is calculated in part by reference to the employee’s pay for his notice period. It is calculated on the “full salary”, including not just base salary, 13th month and vacation pay, but also all other benefits enjoyed by the employee in the framework of their employment. This includes the employer’s contributions to the pension scheme over the course of the 12 months prior to termination.
In practice, this seemingly small element can sometimes cause unpleasant surprises: often, at the time when the first rough severance computation is done, the amount of the pension contributions is not known, or is even overlooked entirely. When this component is added in a later stage, it can materially inflate the severance indemnity if the pension plan is generous, which is often the case for older plans and/or plans for senior managers, where employer contributions of up to 10-15 % are not uncommon.