There are currently 14 employment law related Bills before Parliament or known to be at draft stage, plus another 3 before the Scottish Parliament. Four new relevant Bills have been introduced in the last few weeks, namely (i) the reintroduced Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill; (ii) a Human Rights Act 1998 (Meaning of Public Authority) Bill; (iii) a Temporary and Agency Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Bill; and (iv) a Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill.
Notes on all of these (plus notes on recently enacted employment law related Bills and other relevant Acts of Parliament) are provided from the links below. The links below also provide an archive of recent dropped and/or lapsed employment law related Bills.
Summaries of ALL cases reported in ICR 2007 part 1 and in IRLR 2007 vol 36 no 1 are now noted/summarised on our website as well as ALL other cases reported in ICR and IRLR since January 2000. This is in addition to summaries and/or headnotes of around 2,000 other employment cases, new and old. For most there are direct links to free versions of the full judgments on the internet.
The "Basic Facts and Figures for 2007" page on our website provides a useful quick reference to:-
1. Tribunal compensation limits (increasing from 1st February 2007)
2. State payments on insolvency of employer
3. National Minimum Wage rates
4. Tax Rates and allowances (for 2007/2008)
5. Main Social Security benefit rates
6. Main National Insurance Contribution details
The government has confirmed that its proposal to give employees the right to paid days off on bank and public holidays has been scrapped. Instead there will be a phased in increase to the current statutory minimum paid holiday entitlement from 20 to 28 days.
More accurately the basic proposal is for the current four weeks statutory minimum paid holiday entitlement to be increased from four weeks to 4.8 weeks from 1st October 2007 and from 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks on 1st October 2008. This latter equates to an increase from the current 20 days to 28 days for a worker who works a normal five day week, but of course is proportionately less for those who work less. There will be a cap of 28 days so there will be no extra statutory holiday benefit for a worker who works more than five days a week. Draft "Annual Leave (Amendment to Working Time Legislation) Regulations 2007" are included in a January 2007 consultation document.
It is worth noting that the proposed increases will take the UK above the minimum required by the EU Working Time Directive . Therefore the draft regulations can lawfully make it possible for the new additional holiday, unlike the "basic 4 weeks", to be carried forward. This they do provided the employer and worker both agree.
The government has announced that 1st July 2007 is to be the start date for new laws making smoking (not just of tobacco but also other substances) illegal in virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces. Most of the regulations setting out the details are still to be published but the first regulations have already been finalised (the Smoke-free (Premises and Enforcement) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/3368). These regulations define what is meant by "enclosed" and "substantially enclosed" premises and specify the bodies which will be responsible for enforcement - mainly local authorities. Further regulations still to come will amongst other things set out exemptions, details of vehicles required to be smoke-free and provide fixed penalties for some offences.
With effect from 6th April 2007 the right to request flexible working is extended to employees with responsibility for caring for (i) spouses/ partners (ii) adult relatives as defined and (iii) adults living at the same address as the employee.
"Relative" is defined - widely. It means a mother, father, adopter, guardian, special guardian, parent-in-law, step-parent, son, step-son, daughter, step-daughter, brother, step-brother, brother-in-law, sister, step-sister, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt or grandparent, and includes adoptive relationships and relationships of the full blood or half blood or, in the case of an adopted person, such of those relationships as would exist but for the adoption.
It can sometimes be very difficult to decide whether an overseas worker can bring a claim, for example for unfair dismissal, before a British employment tribunal. There are no hard and fast rules. A year ago the House of Lords ruled that the vital question is whether the "employment relationship" is sufficiently closely connected with Great Britain. The House of Lords indicated that it is even possible for someone who does all his work outside Great Britain to have an employment relationship which is so closely connected with Great Britain that he can be entitled to bring an unfair dismissal claim in Britain (an example given was a foreign correspondent on the permanent staff of a British newspaper, posted to Rome or Peking who might have been living for years in Italy or China).
Shortly before Christmas the EAT did its best to provide some clarity in this murky area and gave five "gateway" examples - but it has to be said that good quality advice, backed by skilled advocacy, is still essential in cases where the problem arises whether from the employer's or the employee's point of view.
There has been concern for some while at the way the no doubt well intentioned October 2004 statutory dispute resolution procedures are working out in practice, introducing as they do new complexities where none were intended combined with the attendant increase in arguments available for use in tribunal cases. Lawyers may have benefitted but nevertheless, along with Judges and HR experts, have been complaining for some time about the position. The DTI has taken note and has now announced it is holding a review into options for "simplifying and improving all aspects of employment dispute resolution".
In December there was a formal announcement that a group is being set up to undertake a "a root and branch review of Government support for resolving disputes in the workplace". Recommendations for change are to be made in Spring 2007 but in the meantime it is of great importance that employers and employees follow the statutory procedures to the letter when and if they apply. The consequences of not doing so can be draconian - failure to realise when the statutory procedures apply and then failure to follow them to the letter can mean that an employer finds a dismissal for perfectly sensible reasons becomes automatically unfair dismissal and that an employee can forfeit the right to bring a claim altogether.
Those directly concerned will be well aware that new pension schemes for firefighters and the police have been under consideration for some time. Regulations setting out the detail have now been made. They come into force on 25th January and 1st February 2007 respectively, in both cases retrospective to April 2006. Of course those who in April 2006 were already members of one of the previous Pension Schemes can choose to remain as members of those schemes. For such people there are pro's and con's in deciding whether or not to switch and advice should be taken. However it is worth noting from a general point of view that even the new schemes are excellent, being final salary schemes which are now increasingly hard to find outside the public sector.
For advice or more information call us and/or click here on Specific employments / firemen / pensions and/or Specific employments / policemen and special constables / pensions
In some ways, perhaps, this newsletter item is a bit technical but it is of quite profound significance generally in the context of official documents being made available to the public. Specifically, the Statute Law Database allows anyone, without charge, to view online copies of most Acts of Parliament as they currently are or at selected dates in the past. It became available online in December 2006 and is a "must-see" for anyone interested. Previously, the government provided Acts of Parliament online only in the form in which they were enacted, This of course could be positively dangerous as amendments are frequently made to legislation, not least to employment legislation.
It has to be said that the Statute Law Database website is not yet the easiest website to navigate around (in fact it could qualify for a "least user-friendly website of the year" award if one exists) but no doubt that will be sorted out. After years of gestation it is now with us and that is a huge step forward, to be welcomed by the public as well as by professionals.
A solicitor had an affair with an employee. He dismissed her when he found she was going out with another man and she brought a sex discrimination claim. Was this unlawful sex discrimination? What do you think? Any reader who says "yes" is in good company as the employee won at the employment tribunal. However the solicitor appealed. The EAT held that the tribunal had got it wrong, the reason being that it applied the wrong test. The EAT's said that a comparator should have been constructed but was not. If the people involved had been male homosexuals the solicitor would, in similar circumstances, have treated his lover in exactly the same way. Therefore the dismissal could not have been sex discrimination as by definition that involves a woman (or man) being treated worse than a person of the other sex was or would have been treated. The dismissal in this case occurred because of jealousy and relationship breakdown not because of sex discrimination.
For those interested in working through the logic, the point of principle is that the original tribunal wrongly applied a "but for" test. It is true that the dismissal would never have happened "but for" the fact that the employee was a woman but, contrary to the tribunal's view, that did not make it sex discrimination. Incidentally, in this case the employee concerned also brought an unfair dismissal claim. She did win that.
It is well known, of course, that here in the UK the adult national minimum wage is £5.35 per hour and that that is increased annually, more or less in line with inflation.
It might be surprising to some to note how different the position is in the USA. There the last time the federal minimum wage was increased was 1997. Even now it is still only $5.15 per hour (although some States have higher minimum wages). On 10th January 2007 the House of Representatives voted to increase the current $5.15 to $5.85, then after one year to $6.55 and then after a further year to $7.25. The proposal now goes to the Senate but even then is not certain of success - Republican senators, supported by the President, have hinted that they may filbuster the proposal unless there are compensatory tax cuts for small businesses.
At current exchange rates the proposal equates to an increase in minimum wage from the current approx £2.65 per hour to about £3.75 by 2009/2010.