Archive for March, 2007
By Liam - Friday, March 30th, 2007
Working women who are close to their due date will be crossing their legs while the last few hours of the old maternity provisions are in force. Women who give birth after tomorrow are set to benefit from more favourable maternity provisions. Employers everywhere face the first in what is set to be a continued headache with the Government’s family friendly policies. As of tomorrow there are a number of changes to the maternity legilsation as follows:
Employees will be entitled to 39 weeks SMP (9 months)
Employees will no longer have to have 6 months service to qualify for Additional Maternity Leave. Provided they qualify for ordinary maternity leave they will also qualify for additional leave.
If an employee wants to return to work before the end of additional maternity leave then the period of notice required has been extended to 8 weeks to assist the employer with business planning.
A new concept of keeping in touch days has been introduced where the employee can do up to 10 days training or working during maternity leave without ending her leave. Payment is however only by negotiation.
The Government believes the cost to employers of these changes will be minimal - do you have a view share it with us.
More changes are due to be introduced next week for flexible working and rates of statutory payments so read about it here next week.
Posted in Maternity | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Liam - Friday, March 30th, 2007
Up to 40,000 workers will be expecting their pay today but a banking glitch with the BACS system means that not all payments were sent on time. Employers may receive complaints from employees today saying they have not been paid but the best advice is to tell employees to contact their bank. Read more about it from the BBC
Posted in Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Leave | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Thursday, March 29th, 2007
….it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results.
Refugees from the 80s will remember that Bananarama song. It would seem that the People Director at Asda agrees with the sentiment. At a recent speech he said that attitude is far more important than skill. Judging by England’s recent football performances I’d tend to agree.The Asda man says chopping out low performing staff is “removing the red.”I’m not sure what sort of attitude that phrase reveals, but there we go.
In terms of a recruitment policy attitude rather than skill may work at Asda, I think it works at a law firm to a certain extent. When recruiting for fee earners and support staff, the recruitment process helps to identify those candidates with an attitudinal fit to our business. Attitude is very important in growing a business, front line staff need to be positive and friendly. Flip chart fairy tales makes some telling points about the need to identify and nurture those with the best attitude against the need also to be aware that attitudes can be culturally based as well.
Posted in Miscellaneous | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Thursday, March 29th, 2007
In a recent decision the EAT in Mercy v Northgate HR have held that individuals do not have locus standi (the right to bring a claim) for a protective award where they were represented by appropriate representatives during a collective consultation period that was found to be defective by the Tribunal.
The EAT say that only the appropriate representatives can bring such a claim in these circumstances. We disagree with this decision. What motivation or ability do unpaid, usually (legally) unqualified elected representatives have to bring a claim for a protective award on behalf of their dismissed colleagues? We think not a lot, which means if individuals can not stand up for themselves by claiming as individuals, the threat of the protective award becomes considerably less of a threat to employers! It also leaves employees without a remedy (except possibly by suing the employee representatives in negligence for not bringing a section 189 claim). Of course Unions would be more likely to bring a claim, but as most of the private sector UK workforce is not unionised, this does not help most employees. Will this decision go to the Court of Appeal? Watch this space!
Posted in Redundancy | 4 comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
The draftsmen responsible for the Statutory Grievance Procedures must have broad shoulders. The EAT have once again criticised the Procedure in Lawrence v HM Prison Service. The case concerned an employee who was dismissed and brought a claim for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. He did not raise a grievance about the disability discrimination. The EAT held that he did not have to do so. The Grievances Procedure contains an exception to the general rule that employees need to raise a grievance about disability discrimination in circumstances where the act of discrimination is dismissal. The case has two important ramifications. Firstly, employees do not need to raise a grievance before bring a dismissal related DDA claim. Secondly, employees must present a complaint of dismissal related disability discrimination within the standard three month limitation period. The extension to six months does not apply to such claims.
Posted in Statutory Procedures | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
As readers may know, as a firm we act for employers and employees. Many employment law firms and departments act either for employers or employees but not for both. We think as a niche firm we should service both. We have recently conducted an audit of our employee matters, which account for 35% of our business, and were struck by how few public sector employees instruct us. Less than 1% of our employee client base has had a public sector employer. Given that 1 in 5 jobs are in the public sector (according to government statistics) then on a normal distribution you would have expected approximately 10 to 20% of our employee client base to have a public sector employer. Why do we have so few public sector employees as clients?
There are a number of possible reasons:
1. Public sector employees use their unions rather than a private solicitor. Possible but private sector employee clients have unions but they choose to use solicitors.
2. Many private sector jobs are labour intensive (eg nursing) and you cannot wring further efficiency gains from them. For example it takes as long to change a dressing now than it did in Florence Nightingale’s time. Therefore such jobs are immune from redundancy.
3. The public sector is better managed and more efficient than the private sector, therefore fewer people need to be dismissed. Possible but using an a and e department as I had to a couple of weekends ago, as an example, well managed and efficient were not the adjectives I would have used to describe the experience.
4. My instinct is that public sector employment is more secure therefore there is less demand for employment law services from employees. Regardless of performance, efficiency or productivity, you’re immune from dismissal. Having worked in local government many years ago, Managers set the tone. Come in at 8.00am. Guardian crossword until 9.00am. Meetings. Pub 12-1.30. Snooze at desk until 3.00pm. Off at 4.30pm. Retire at 50 on full package. One guy was given a final written warning for running a business during work time.
Posted in Miscellaneous | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Monday, March 26th, 2007
Following on from Friday’s post about Cunningham which specifically related to employees who have both committed the same offence, the EAT have more recently considered a similar point in Levenes Solicitors v Dalley. This case considered an employee (a solicitor) who had missed court deadlines. She was dismissed. She raised the fact that other solicitors had missed deadlines and not been dismissed, although there were distinguishing features in those cases. The EAT approved the earlier Court of Appeal decision in Paul v East Surrey District Health Authority which said that a tariff approach to industrial misconduct should be avoided. Each case should be considered on its merits in deciding whether the decision to dismiss was within the range of reasonable responses. Unless two different cases are truly parallel in terms of their facts and the surrounding circumstances, including mitigating or aggravating factors, the consistency argument is unlikely, on its own, to render a dismissal unfair.
Posted in Unfair Dismissal | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Friday, March 23rd, 2007
We are often asked whether it is permissible to impose two different sanctions on two different employees for the same offence. The answer, according to London Borough of Harrow v Cunningham [1996], is that it may be, provided that there is a satisfactory explanation for disparate treatment. As long as any explanation is not so irrational that no employer would reasonably use that explanation, different sanctions can be fair. Explanations that employers could reasonably use to justify disparate sanctions could include mitigating factors, aggravating factors, length of service and disciplinary history.
Employers are also often surprised to hear that if an offence, for example, a theft has been committed and the employer, after a fair and thorough investigation, can not identify the culprit but can establish it must be one of a limited number of employees, it can be fair to dismiss them all even though one or more of them have almost certainly done nothing wrong!
Posted in Unfair Dismissal | No comments »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
For those whose hobbies don’t include train-spotting that haven’t yet read the 326 page Budget 2007 Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report and Financial Statement and Budget Report, take a look at paragraph 3.56. It refers to the “Gibbons Review of dispute resolution” and proposes that the statutory procedure be repealed. It’s not happened yet, but consultation has begun so have your say http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page38508.html. However, for now we still have to go through letters, meetings, more letters and appeals…..and litigation as a result of regulations that the EAT have said in open court seem to be more likely to make lawyers money than to resolve disputes. While on the subject of statutory procedures, have a look at the poll on the left of this blog. Let us know what you think about the procedures!
Posted in Statutory Procedures | 1 comment »
Similar Posts:
By Philip - Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
The latest news from the Budget is that Basic Rate Tax is being slashed from 22p to 20p but the lower rate tax band will disappear from April 2008. Corporation Tax sees a drop from 30p to 28p but small company tax is going up from 19p incrementally to 22p. See the full report here
Posted in Miscellaneous | No comments »
Similar Posts:
