Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
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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By Philip - Monday, September 17th, 2007
The Daily Mail report that a Hindu worker has been sacked for wearing a nose stud.This does seem a bit over the top, particularly as it would appear that the employee had worn the nose stud for a year without a problem.
It would seem that this Company had a rule stating that with the exception of sleeper stud ear rings, no “flesh piercing” jewellery was permitted.
Discreet (and indiscreet) piercings and tattooes have now become part and parcel of youth culture, with people in the public eye like David Beckham and Zara Phillips being quite open in their tattooed and pierced flesh. A tongue stud was no reason to take Zara Phillips off the public payroll, although for the more republican of our readers it may have been an useful stick to beat her with.
In this particular case there was a religious reason for the piercing. Is it time for Companies to take a broader minded approach to appearance codes? Have managers not got more to do than police whether or not their employees are abiding by the Company’s appearance policies?Does a strict dress code add value or is it HR make work?Your thoughts.
Posted in Miscellaneous, Religion or Belief Discrimination | No comments »
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By Liam - Friday, September 14th, 2007
At PJH Law w
e like to think we are different to traditional, formal, stuffy, booted and suited lawyers who take ages to return phone calls and are miserable when they do. We try to be friendly, approachable, cheerful and easily contactable. All our clients have our solicitors’ mobile numbers so help is at hand when it is needed.
It was thus with interest that I saw a survey by Badenoch & Clarke has found that lawyers are the happiest office workers in the UK with 64% being happy in their current jobs - the highest for any profession in the UK. If this is so, why was it I was told last weekend that I was too cheerful to be a solicitor! Do solicitors not normally show their happiness even when they are happy? Do people expect solicitors to be miserable?
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By Liam - Monday, September 3rd, 2007
The Employment Tribunal Service has published its 2006-2007 report. The report covers the period from 1 April 2006 - 31 March 2007.
The report shows that the overall number of tribunal claims are on the increase - by over 15%…….so much for the Employment Act 2002 and the Statutory Dismissal and Grievance Procedures reducing claims. In fact I can think of numerous examples of instances where they have caused extra litigation.
There have been 972 Age Discrimination Claims (in the 6 months since the Regulations came in to force on 1 October 2006 to the end of the period covered by this report - 31 March 2007). Of these NONE have won at Tribunal and 6 have lost at Tribunal. The rest were withdrawn, settled, struck out, dismissed at a preliminary hearing or secured a default judgement. It seems very few people have been prepared to see this new type of claim all the way through to hearing - no one wants to be the test case! Age discrimination claims had one of the highest number of settlements - 38% of all age cases settled (behind Sex Discrimination at 48% and equal pay with a whopping 60% settlement rate).
The average Unfair Dismissal award was just under £8,000.00 and the median Unfair Dismissal award was £3,800.00. Costs were awarded in fewer than 0.25% of cases and mainly in favour of the Respondent.
Posted in Age Discrimination, Employment Tribunal Procedure, Miscellaneous, Sex/Race Discrimination, Statutory Procedures | No comments »
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By Liam - Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
Company owners by definition hold at least one share in the Company and if they work for the benefit of the company they could be construed as employees.
If a shareholder works day to day for the Company (under a contract of service) they may be an employee.
This interesting observation becomes relevant when complying with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to produce an appropriate policy. Take a small company with 2 shareholders that work for the company each day and 4 employees. On face value the exemption of fewer than 5 employees may appear to apply, as many owner-employees do not see themselves as employees. However, in reality it will not as the shareholders who work for the Company may be, in law, employees and therefore a policy will be required.
Beware all you owners of small Companies! Remember to count yourself!
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By Philip - Thursday, August 9th, 2007
Remember Michael Fennessey? Well he has kindly emailed me, pointing my newshound to a blogworthy story that is currently getting the chattering classes of New Zealand spluttering into their G and T’s. The story brings together some hot topics: academic standards, western sensibilities to Muslims. foreign students being milked as cash cows, and academic tenure (or the right of academics to hold a job for life unless there is just cause for dismissal.)
Picture the scene, a not particularly academically gifted or conscientious muslim foreign student from the Middle East requesting an extension of time to hand in her essay as her father had just died. Well this was like red rag to a bull to the lecturer concerned, a Mr Buchanan, who was sacked for sending this email back.
Leaving aside the brouhaha this case has caused, one important point appears to have been missed by the gossiping media folk, judging by his picture (and the number of typos in his email) do you think Mr Buchanan has an Alex Ferguson like fondness for a wee dram? Or is it Alan Curbishley moonlighting pre-season?
Posted in Miscellaneous, Unfair Dismissal | No comments »
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By Philip - Monday, August 6th, 2007
If any one is wondering what the post title refers, it’s the theme tune to when the countdown clock counts down at the end of the words and numbers show on Channel 4, formerly presented by Richard Whiteley. I admit that I did use to watch it, when I was at home holding the baby.
The relevance is to submission of unfair dismissal claims. If you leave submission of a claim to the last minute you run the risk of being timed out. In this case the employee after originally sending his claim form by email, sent it to the wrong email address (one letter out). He then sent a test message to the right address and then filed his claim. He had left it until the last 10 minutes of the last day of the period and by the time he sent the email to the right address he was 88 seconds too late. The Tribunal and the EAT dismissed his claim as he had the opportunity to submit on time but left it too late.
In other news Liam came 4th in the National Sailing championship, held last week in Scotland. Well done to Liam, his best ever result.
Posted in Employment Tribunal Procedure, Miscellaneous, Unfair Dismissal | No comments »
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