The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently handed down a judgment which serves as a useful reminder for employers of the risks of taking disciplinary action against union representatives for behaviour which may look like misconduct but which actually constitutes union activity. By way of background, section 146(1)(b) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) … Continue Reading
On Friday last week the Financial Times reported on proposals from the Business Department to “rip up worker protections” under the current Working Time Regulations. But simultaneously on BBC News online, look, it’s the Business Secretary himself denying on twitter any notion that his department is planning to dilute UK workers’ rights. The very idea. … Continue Reading
So here we are all again and, says the Government’s latest guidance, able to leave home to work only where it is “unreasonable for you to do your job from home“. This is the umpteenth permutation of the same underlying message about working from home if you can, and was almost certainly meant to say … Continue Reading
In a previous blog we noted that as of November 2020, Belgium would again be in semi-lockdown and that one of the measures re-imposed was the obligation to work from home, unless this is realistically impossible. Employees whose work requires them to go the office need a confirmatory certificate from their employer attesting to this … Continue Reading
It is easy to dismiss some EAT decisions as a storm in a teacup, legally-speaking, all very traumatic for those bobbing about in them, but of little significance to the wider world of employment law or practice. Steer – v – Stormsure Limited earlier this month is not one of those decisions. It has the … Continue Reading
All the smart money is on 2021 to see an increased number of grievances and Employment Tribunal claims as the pandemic support regime winds down. Therefore this is probably a good moment to look at the practical lessons to be taken from Cole – v – Elders Voice in the Employment Appeal Tribunal last month … Continue Reading
Businesses in Great Britain with 250 employees or more are required to publish information annually showing the difference in average pay between their male and female employees – the “gender pay gap”. This year the reporting obligation was suspended, but what is likely to happen for the reporting year 2020/21?… Continue Reading
Back in 2016 the Government published a Call for Evidence to better understand, it said, how non-compete clauses in employment contracts are used and why, and to assess the benefits and disadvantages associated with them. The Call was a mess in every sense, legally, practically and even grammatically, as we said here nowhere in the whole … Continue Reading
So we hear by Twitter on Thursday last week that from the crack of dawn on Saturday just gone, “high-value business travellers” are partially exempt from self-isolation requirements when entering or returning to England. A number of media, arts and sports roles have been granted an exemption also. “Conditions apply”, it said, and so they … Continue Reading
In the earlier parts of this blog series (part 1 & part 2) we saw that for the most part, asking your employees to take the covid-19 vaccination will be a reasonable management request and that their refusal to do so will usually be deemed unreasonable at law. Against that background, how should the employer … Continue Reading
The Chancellor has announced that the rate of the National Living Wage will increase to £8.91, with corresponding increases to all the underlying national minimum wage rates, from April 2021. Importantly, the NLW (a higher rate than the NMW) will also now apply for those aged 23 and above (previously it was for 25 and … Continue Reading
Having established in the first of this series that a request to take the covid-19 vaccination is probably a reasonable management request, then what? Can you go straight from there to enforcing it as an issue of disobedience? Only if the refusal is unreasonable. Will refusal to take the vaccine be an unreasonable failure to … Continue Reading
So a government-approved vaccination becomes available and you really want your employees to take it. Can you just insist, or does the development of the vaccine turn out to have been the easy bit? Here and in further posts to follow shortly are some headline thoughts on the point. Please note that these will be … Continue Reading
I spoke at a commercial webinar yesterday concerning the opportunities for and obstacles to mediation as a solution to workplace disputes in the pandemic. Other speakers represented employers and the mediation community. Here are some takeaways:… Continue Reading
Boris’ press conference on Saturday night addressed one key question and left another unanswered. In his late start, overturning of previous statements and an expression more hunted than Ronnie Biggs, the Prime Minister showed clearly that the pandemic holds the reins of power at present, not the Government. On the other hand, after six months … Continue Reading
We were – as ever – maybe a little late to the party, but as of Monday 2 November, Belgium is in new lockdown, at least until 13 December. Non-essential shops are closed and so-called “professions with direct contact” (beauticians, barbers) are prohibited from working. Working from home is mandatory, unless this is “impossible due … Continue Reading
Remote evidence in Tribunal hearings have traditionally been limited to circumstances where an individual’s location or health makes it very difficult for them to attend the venue. Historically the ETs have not much liked it and there is a continued perception that evidence given remotely is like that given by a written statement alone – … Continue Reading
Stung by the greatly lower take-up for the Job Support Scheme than expected, surely a surprise to no-one who had actually read it, the government has moved this week to address two of its key shortcomings – first, the JSS required there to be work enough available to justify at least a third of the … Continue Reading
Back in March we posted here an explanation of why the “manifestly unfounded” exception to an employer’s DSAR obligations was perhaps less helpful than the ICO’s then guidance suggested. Now there is some new ICO guidance out this week which probably does move the needle slightly more usefully in favour of the employer.… Continue Reading
A recent Acas survey has reported that over a third of employers (37%) are likely to make staff redundancies in the next 3 months (see here). That is a statistic which can be a surprise to no one, except possibly that it is not higher. Often in redundancy situations, the majority of the “sympathy” quite … Continue Reading
The government in Spain has adopted two new Royal Decrees to address the gender wage gap and ensure the effectiveness of equality plans. These regulations implement two key employer obligations: (i) to guarantee equal pay for men and women, and; (ii) to draw up and register equality plans.… Continue Reading
Here is another question which came up more than once at last week’s webinar on Managing Working Parents but which I was unable to get to at the time. If you receive a flexible working application now, can you “park” it until things settle down and you have a clearer picture of what your post-pandemic … Continue Reading
Our thanks to the 100-plus attendees on our “Managing Working Parents” webinar yesterday. As anticipated, we didn’t get to all the questions on this currently even more than usually vexed topic which were submitted through the chat box facility thingy, so as promised, here are some further answers (more to follow soon):… Continue Reading
Friday last week saw the issue of the fourth Treasury Direction to HMRC concerning the administration of the CJRS. TD4 deals with the CJRS job retention bonus scheme, shamefully immortalised in the drafting as the CJRS(JR)B – what would have been so hard about “the Bonus”? Five and a bit pages of circumlocution and sub-sub-sub-paragraphs … Continue Reading
