The National Minimum Wage rates have increased, bringing new risks for employers. Employers may now find themselves breaching the regulations for something as simple as asking employees to provide an item of uniform, and the penalties for non-compliance can be severe. On 25 June 2018, National Minimum Wage lawyers James Pike and Laura McLellan will be hosting this … Continue Reading
Ostensibly the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s decision in Bakkali –v- Greater Manchester Buses last week is a faintly technical one about how the required connection with a personal characteristic protected under the Equality Act differs between direct discrimination and harassment.… Continue Reading
The Squires international employment law portal continues its growth with the release last week of its Nigeria section. No more desperate internet searches, no more conflicting information or worrying about whether you are getting the whole picture – Global Edge offers you the opportunity to research specific questions or to compare and contrast Nigerian labour … Continue Reading
After a breathless April saw Global Edge secure awards for lawyer innovation and technology in London and Dubai, our celebrated international Employment Law portal starts May with the addition of a new jurisdiction, Portugal. As a taster, did you know that they have over 1,000 different ways of cooking cod there, and that despite 95% … Continue Reading
So now you have published your gender pay gap statement and added the traditional narrative treading the thin line between acknowledgement of the gap and denial that it represents evidence of any unlawful discrimination. Well done so far, but if the UK Government has its way, that is only the beginning.… Continue Reading
Next month we are presenting a webinar to discuss the important employment reforms that are being phased in from 1 January 2018 and which will affect all employers located in Belgium. Intended to boost job creation, the reforms are on the back of the 2017 measures giving increased flexibility in working time. On 16 May … Continue Reading
Told you it was great! In a whirl of sequins and inappropriate shoes at London’s Grosvenor Hotel on Wednesday night, the Squire Patton Boggs Global Edge product secured the coveted Legal Business UK Award for Legal Technology Team of the year. The Award “recognises the law firms, in-house teams and Chambers that have pushed through … 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
What do you not know about Finland that might help you with your HR operations there? Is it that there are no polar bears there, or is that merely reassuring rather than helpful? Is it that back in 1906 it was the first country in Europe to give women the vote, or is that uplifting … Continue Reading
What do you not know about Finland that might help you with your HR operations there? Is it that there are no polar bears there, or is that merely reassuring rather than helpful? Is it that back in 1906 it was the first country in Europe to give women the vote, or is that uplifting … Continue Reading
As an alternative to Brexit, Russian spies and what happens now to Ant and Dec, here is something new to keep your next dinner party guests impressed and entertained, the Ministry of Justice’s unmissable statistics for the Employment Tribunal Service for Q4 2017.… Continue Reading
They do say that maternity in the workplace can be an unsettling and confusing time, leaving you confronting new questions and situations that no one has really prepared you for, and where the guidance comes at you from a range of sources as wide as they are inconsistent. Anyway, enough about employers.… Continue Reading
Back in June 2016, I wrote a piece on the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s decision in Carreras -v- UFPR concerning the extent to which an employer’s expectations can amount to a provision, criterion or practice (PCP) for disability discrimination purposes (specifically, as a trigger for the obligation to make reasonable adjustments). That post is here https://www.employmentlawworldview.com/when-overtime-goes-bad-employers-duties-to-clarify-expectations-for-disabled-staff/.… Continue Reading
A client put this to us the other day – assuming that a photo or video footage of a current or former employee counts as his personal data, which it does, how far will his GDPR “right to be forgotten” allow him to reach into the employer’s records and require that image to be deleted?… Continue Reading
HMRC has been successful in the first case since 2011 on the intermediaries legislation (known as the IR35 rules) in a case which brings back into the limelight a commonly-used freelancing structure.… Continue Reading
The duty on a UK employer to make reasonable adjustments applies only when it knows or ought to know about an employee’s disability. Establishing actual knowledge is easy enough, but what about constructive awareness, where the employer obviously does not know but is nonetheless being expected to act as if it did? In Gallop -v- … Continue Reading
Following the Chancellor’s announcement in November’s budget regarding changes to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates, the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2018 have now been laid before Parliament. The Regulations implement these increases from 1 April 2018: National Living Wage (Over 25’s) – £7.83 (previously £7.50) 21-24 year olds – £7.38 … Continue Reading
Ruled upon by the EAT at the end of last year, Coffey marks a significant but ultimately unsurprising precedent in terms of perceived disability cases in the UK. The case is the first directly to address the issue of perceived disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and confirms that an employer cannot treat an … Continue Reading
News out this week that a committee of MPs is to look into workplace harassment, and in particular the use of confidentiality wording in settlement agreements arising from harassment allegations. Critics allege, says the BBC New Online, that such clauses are “abused by employers and legal experts to cover up wrongdoing” and used to “buy … Continue Reading
On 7 February the UK Government published its ‘Good Work’ plan, setting out how it intends to take forward the recommendations contained in the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices published last summer. The Review was tasked with investigating how modern working practices are having an impact on the world of work. The Government’s press … Continue Reading
Most successful businesses want to grow but what do they mean? Greater size and/or number of sites, higher output, income and/or profit, larger headcount or a more prominent media profile? Many see internal investment as the panacea to growth but that also means different things to different businesses – for manufacturing businesses, for example, it … Continue Reading
