Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
By Liam - Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
For those readers of this blog that read the Guardian or watch BBC East Midlandsyou may have already noticed articles and interviews appearing from our very own Philip Hyland.
Following PJH Law’s trial of running an Employment Law Helpline for Polish workers, Philip has been approached first by the Guardian and then the BBC to speak about our findings as to the rate of pay and general treatment of Polish Workers.
Watch Philip on TV here.
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By Jenny - Monday, June 30th, 2008
A teenager has taken her claim to the High Court in relation to the right to wear a bangle to school which she says is a symbol of faith.
Sarika Watkins-Singh was excluded from Aberdare Girls’ School in South Wales in November 2007 because she refused to take off the bangle known as the Kara. The school has said that pupils are banned from wearing most jewellery. The hearing will look into whether the school’s decision was justified.
Human rights group Liberty, which is supporting Sarika’s case claims that by refusing to let her wear the Kara Aberdare School has breached race, equality and human rights laws.
The 14 year old is claiming unlawful discrimination. The hearing is set for three days.
Employment practitioners will remember the case of Eweida v British Airways Plc in which an employee brought a claim to the Tribunal after her employers banned her from wearing a small cross with her uniform. The Tribunal actually dismissed the claim and held that BA’s policy did not directly discriminate against Ms Eweida on religious grounds because anyone wearing such a symbol, or indeed jewellery of any kind, would have been treated the same way regardless of their religion. In the end Ms Eweida was allowed to wear a cross as BA reviewed its policy.
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By Sarah - Friday, June 6th, 2008
The City and Guilds have published a happiness index of employees which showed that 57% of employees stay with their current employer because of an interest in their job but only 44% remain due to their salary and benefits package.
Apparently good relationships with colleagues, a good work-life balance and lower stress are all key in making employees happy. Here at PJH Law we pride ourselves on a happy workplace as well as offering the trimmings to all staff. Speaking to a client this week I was explaining the link that is often missed between high levels of sickness and low morale. This client was discussing issues of morale within the department and when we looked at sickness absence levels we found that they had actually increased.
The research from the City and Guilds comes as no surprise to us at PJH Law who have long said that a happy workforce leads to greater staff retention and a higher productivity. It is quite clear that staff happiness effects the bottom line!
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By Philip - Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Well I watched the Apprentice for the first time in this series and I was a bit surprised at the result. In fact Lucinda was the only one of the five who I would have employed.
The message the programme sends out is that if you are a narcissistic backstabber, or lie on your cv and can’t spell or are a former club 18-30 rep or think the other contestants are gob shites, then you’ll get ahead of someone who is mature, eloquent, bright and not in it for the money. Funny old world!
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By Philip - Friday, May 23rd, 2008
It’s not often an Employment Tribunal arrives at a majority decision, it’s probably even rarer in the Emplyment Appeal Tribunal.
The case reported here is a rarer than hen’s teeth example of a split EAT decision, and one involving the President.
Whether someone is an employee, worker, self employed or casual is a matter that is in the top tier of important employment law issues du jour.
In a nutshell (without doing the judgment a disservice) a long course of conduct can lead to an obligation (in this case to offer work) even if the contract may say there is no entitlement to be offered work. Another case of what happens in practice being as important as what the contract says.
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By Emma - Monday, May 12th, 2008
Recent research has shown that agency workers stay in their jobs for under 5 months so few would benefit from the CBI’s proposals that agency workers should be given equal treatment with directly employed staff.
See here for more.
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By Emma - Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Lord Woolf’s report published yesterday which reviewed BAE’s current policies and practices found that there were no ethical standards embedded in the company. BAE is now to appoint an ethics monitor to oversee a new code of conduct at the company.
The report stated that “critically, both the chairman and the chief executive, in discussions with us, acknowledged that the company did not in the past pay sufficient attention to ethical standards and avoid activities that had the potential to give rise to reputational damage”.
It seems pretty shocking that such a huge company has had no code of ethical standards in place up to now and one wonders whether they would be taking the action they are taking had it not been for the recommendation of this report so to do.
For a summary of the report see here.
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By Liam - Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Back in 2001, the government introduced Stakeholder Pensions as a means of encouraging more employees to save for retirement. All employers with 5 or more employees are legally required to offer a stakeholder pension scheme. If they do not, they can be fined up to £50,000.00. However, employers are not required to contribute to such a scheme. Accordingly, many employees haven’t bothered to join a pension scheme and the government is still concerned that employees are not saving enough (or at all) for retirement.
The Pensions Bill started making its way through parliament on 5 December 2007. In short if the Bill is passed, employees will automatically be enrolled in a pension scheme (unless they expressly opt out) and employers will be legally obliged to contribute at least 3% of each employee’s earnings (within a band). In addition employees who don’t opt out will have to contribute at least 4% and the government will give tax relief on contributions.
More information on this topic can be found here.
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By Philip - Monday, November 26th, 2007
We have started a new legal resource called a legal glossary, which is an A to Z of common employment law terms.
We hope that the resource will build into an invaluable tool for both HR practitioners and lawyers alike.
To get everyone in the mood, here is a fun A to Z describing England’s performance (and the state of the pitch) last week against Croatia.
A - Abysmal
B - “Bobbins”
C -Complacent
D - Dire
E - Execrable
F - Forlorn
G - Goal shy
H - Horrible
I - Ignoble
J - Journeyman-like
K - Kindergarten - ish
L - Limp-wristed
M - (run of the ) Mill
N - Nadir
O - ‘Opeless
P - Piss-pauvre , point-less
Q - Quagmire
R - Risible
S - Soft
T - Tactically naive
U- Ugly
V - Vigourless
W -Wanting
X - X-rated
Y -Yawn-inducing
Z -Zero pointed
To rub further salt in the wounds, here’s what happened in Scotland. and here’s what the lads vowed to do to get over 40 years of hurt.
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By Philip - Thursday, October 4th, 2007
We went to an employment law update conference yesterday. I am pleased to say that most of the ground covered by the speakers had already been covered on the blog, so we did feel smug. It was not a total waste of time as we picked up 6 CPD points, the lunch was good and I had the pleasure of Liam’s Company on the train down!
A few morsels that were new to us were:
- Statutory dismissal and grievance procedures are likely to go by April 2009. In the meantime they are to be used by employers and employees.
- The majority of personal injury claims at work relate to pyschiatric harm - stress and depression rather than physical harm.
- More and more claims are being made under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997. The point for Personnel Practitioners to note is that these claims have a 6 year limitation period and can arrive out of the blue, when the witnesses to the allegations may no longer be employed. Compare with Tribunal claims which, postal strike permitting, normally land on the doormat 3 months after the employment has ended.
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