A remarkable kite-flying exercise emerged today with widespread news coverage of the report about employment law produced by venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft at the request of David Cameron. With headlines such as “Scrap unfair dismissal claims for lazy workers – report” (BBC) and “Give firms freedom to sack unproductive workers, leaked Downing Street report advises”…
As originally drafted, the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 prohibited discrimination on grounds of religion or "similar" philosophical beliefs. Then the Equality Act 2006 removed the requirement for such similarity, and extended the protection to any philosophical belief: the Equality Act 2010 s.10 continues with that wide definition. Removal of just one word…
Both the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (NMW) and the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) call for calculations of "working time", so there is a temptation to assume that the words mean the same thing in both provisions. But beware – there is a crucial difference when it comes to periods when a worker is…
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 SI 2010/93 came into force on 1 October, giving effect (eventually) to the 2008 EU directive on temporary agency work. The government has given in to the inevitable, albeit not gracefully – there is still talk of removing any "gold plating" of the EU requirements, for example by amending them…
In these continuing hard times, with profits squeezed and businesses facing collapse, it is becoming increasingly common to consider salary reductions as a cost saving exercise. Although some consider it a risky option, given the prospect of employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal and breach of contract, it is well established that dismissal for refusal…
The extent of the duty to make reasonable adjustments to avoid placing a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage, including taking steps to get them back to work, is highly fact sensitive. It has been looked at by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in a number of recent cases without giving a definitive answer about how…
Many employers are wary of giving references, fearing they will end up in a no win situation. They may find themselves at the wrong end of a claim either by a new employer complaining that a reference was misleading, or by a former employee complaining that they have not got a job because the reference…
In the context of recent reports from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Chartered Management Institute that it will take 70 years and 98 years, respectively, for women to be equally represented in positions of power and to achieve pay equality at senior levels, some might think that strong measures to address pay inequality…
You know that moment when someone voices something you’ve been thinking for a while? Lord Justice Mummery hit the nail on the head for many who have experience of the employment tribunal system in Gayle v Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust when he responded to criticisms about how long the case had taken…