Last week the government voiced its support for the new Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, the endeavour of MP Scott Benton to combat “one-sided flexibility”, where “workers are on stand-by for work which never comes”, it says in the BEIS press release. This is a belated by-product of the Taylor Good Work Report in … Continue Reading
During our recent webinar on Managing Long-term Sickness Absence, we received a number of questions via the chat facility. Our second batch of answers addresses the following questions:… Continue Reading
Back in November 20201 we reported here on some new Acas guidance on changing terms of employment through dismissal and re-engagement, and in November last year on the Government’s intention to issue a new statutory Code on that practice here. A first draft of that Code has now landed and we can exclusively report that … Continue Reading
The Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has proposed two draft Bills that will introduce major changes to Czech employment law this year. Although the legislation is currently still in draft form, we recommend that employers start preparing for the changes ahead now, as the new rules will come into force shortly after the … Continue Reading
During our recent webinar on Managing Long-term Sickness Absence, we received a number of questions via the chat facility that we will address in a short series of blogs over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more to come. The first questions we address are:… Continue Reading
Roughly a year late, but here we are then: Belgium has finally transposed the Whistleblowers Directive into national law. The Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of reporters of breaches of Union or national law discovered within a legal entity in the private sector sets out the rules for companies in the private … Continue Reading
As the next in our occasional series of posts about The Law, here is a new Employment Appeal Tribunal decision so morally unjust that even the Judge himself didn’t want to make it. Mrs Bacon was married to the majority shareholder of their joint employer, Advanced Fire Solutions Limited. She was also employee, director and … Continue Reading
Christmas being a season of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, so they say despite all the evidence, here is a quick festive look at just how confrontational things have to become in order to constitute a dispute at law. The question is a surprisingly important one, since on the existence of a … Continue Reading
On Monday this week the Government issued its response to its 2021 consultation on the flexible working regime. We wrote about some of the original proposals here. Some didn’t make the cut, so we are left with five key points for employers.… Continue Reading
There is a long-established legal principle that you can only imply an employment relationship in the face of a contract saying something different if it is necessary to do so, i.e. if the found facts of the relationship are not consistent with any other explanation, in particular, worker status or genuine self-employment. Until the Court … Continue Reading
So if in some parallel universe you had somehow acquired the ability to strike red lines through EU-derived employment legislation, where would you put them? That is a question I put well before the Brexit Referendum to countless HR audiences, the very people one might think would be straining at the leash to make changes … Continue Reading
The Home Office has updated its ‘Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors’. The changes affect UK employers with sponsor licences and provide clarification on how to amend a sponsored worker’s start date in the UK after their visa has been granted. Sponsors should take note of the changes in order to comply with their … Continue Reading
So, quick, answer me this – when making redundancies outside the collective consultation rules, do you need to consult with the affected employees about the selection criteria relied upon or only as to the proposed impact of those criteria on that person? Traditional wisdom would point to the latter. The selection criteria are a matter … Continue Reading
Over the last few weeks you may have been bombarded with fliers and alerts on the many recent changes to Belgian employment laws. A lot of changes indeed, but what do they mean for you, and what do you need to do? In this post, we have cut away all the details to come to … Continue Reading
You would think that in the twenty-plus years since they were first introduced as an alternative to the Acas COT3, all that could be said about the law relating to settlement agreements would have been said. However, along now comes the Scottish Employment Appeal Tribunal in Bathgate –v- Technip UK Limited and Others with a … Continue Reading
UK employers are generally aware of the need to carry out prescribed checks to ensure their employees have the right to work, and the consequences of illegal employment (civil penalty of £20,000, risk to sponsor licence or, in extreme cases, criminal prosecution). But the way in which the Home Office says these checks must be … Continue Reading
The thing about one-stop shops is that if they do not stock what you want, they become next best thing to useless. Anyway, welcome to the government’s new Guidance on Employment Status, expressly billed in the accompanying press release as meeting all your worker status needs in one handy document. … Continue Reading
If you are in the habit of taking your life-advice from Tik Tok, you will have seen encouragement recently to join the “quiet-quitters”. These are the Gen Z workers who make a conscious decision to do the bare minimum at work, those who have “left the building” mentally (and if hybrid working, also physically) but … Continue Reading
Oops. Just found an unanswered question left over from our investigations webinar and blog series earlier in the year. Apologies if it was yours. The question revolves around employer and investigator interactions with the Police where the subject matter of your workplace investigation is potentially criminal conduct, and is maybe best answered as a series … Continue Reading
In earlier posts on this blog you will find a handful of cases which consider the distinction between the fact of a protected whistle-blowing disclosure and the manner of it. Accepted wisdom, thanks in part to the unimprovable words of then Mr Justice Underhill in Martin -v-Devonshires Solicitors here is that an employer can in … Continue Reading
If I were to rank the employment law questions I receive by popularity, questions around long-term absence, absenteeism and generally how to deal with work incapacity would be right up there, a definite podium finish. The tension between the legitimate frustrations of employers and the no-fault nature of the employees’ absence seems eternal. To give … Continue Reading
Parliament’s Private Members’ Bills ballot gives backbench MPs the opportunity to propose new legislation or changes to existing laws on a topic of their choice. We wouldn’t normally report on Private Members’ Bills as very few of them ever become actual law and some are downright silly – if you can still find it, take … Continue Reading
It certainly wasn’t the main talking point in Westminster in the middle of the country’s own meteorological hot flush earlier this month but on 19 July the government published its Response to Menopause and the workplace: how to enable fulfilling working lives, an independent report commissioned by the then Minister for Employment and published in … Continue Reading
Despite what seems to be almost universal opposition to its proposals, the government has changed the law to allow employment businesses to supply temporary workers to cover for striking workers. Regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 prohibits employment businesses from supplying temporary workers to cover (i) the duties … Continue Reading
