email usWe’re hiring! Due to our growth we have full time permanent positions available for Employment Law Advisors to compliment our existing team based in Ripponden (junction 22 M62). The role is Monday to Friday. Experience in HR is essential as well as an ability to work under pressure and offer solutions to clients on a wide scope of HR related issues. We offer a good package, working conditions and salary is negotiable subject to experience. If you would like an informal chat in the first instance please contact Johanna McMillan Peel on 07803 126142 or email your CV with a covering letter to johannam@elcons.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you! Please feel free to share. Strictly no agencies.
Taking place in Peters House, Manchester, we covered everything you need to know on the subject.
A big thank you to all who attended and spoke at our seminar today.
The legislation to protect agency and zero hours workers, introduced today, means staff must be informed of their rights from their first day of work, including eligibility for paid and sick leave. Workers must also be given the right to request predictable hours.
The reform takes forward a majority of the recommendations made in the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. This includes closing the ‘Swedish derogation’ loophole which allowed agency staff to be paid less than permanent employees.
A series of proposed changes has been published by the Government with claims this could be the biggest reform of employment law in 20 years, following Matthew Taylor’s Good Work Review.The key proposals are:
Aggravating Conduct – increasing the penalty for employer’s aggravating conduct from £5,000 to £20,000Continuity of Employment – Increasing the one-week rule to break continuity, up to four weeks.
Contracts – workers will have the right to have written statement of terms and conditions to workers as well as employees.Contracts – employer’s will be required to give written statement of terms and conditions on the first day of work (rather than within 8 weeks)
Employment Status Tests – streamlined avoiding employers misclassifying employees and workers as self-employed.
The Swedish Derogation – giving employers the ability to pay agency workers less than their own workers in certain circumstances is to be abolished.Unlawful Deductions – banning employers making deductions from staff tips (presumably extending to the existing unlawful deduction laws)
The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill became the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act on 13 September 2018.
The Act states that from day one of employment, two weeks’ unpaid leave will be an granted for employees who lose a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from the 24th week of pregnancy.
The government is aiming for the new law to be in force in 2020, which will see employees being entitled to be paid at the statutory rate once they have completed 26 weeks’ service.
British track cyclist, Jess Varnish, is claiming wrongful dismissal, sex discrimination and detriment to a whistle-blower after being dropped from the Great Britain cycling team in 2016.
Varnish claims she was dropped by the team less than a month after speaking out against coaches for mistakes made in qualifying for the Rio Olympics. An internal enquiry found that Shane Sutton, the then Technical Director told her to “go and have a baby” and an independent inquiry has accused Sutton of being complicit in a fear culture within British Cycling.
The first challenge for the 28-year-old is to convince the judge she was an employee, this will be assessed as the judge is provided evidence regarding the level of control exerted over her by UK Sport and British Cycling as a funded athlete.
Wider implications:
If accepted that athletes could be classed as employees this will mean athletes may be required to pay tax and British Sports funders will become liable for holiday, sick pay and pension contributions.
Watch this space…..
The EAT overturned a tribunal decision after finding the original tribunal “erred in its approach” towards Professor Roya Sheikholeslami’s claim that her former employer – the University of Edinburgh’s school of engineering – discriminated against her because of her work-related stress and depression, and failed to make reasonable adjustments. While legal proceedings were ongoing, Sheikholeslami’s colleagues had been instructed not to contact her except through her solicitors as she was “in dispute” with the organisation, effectively meaning she was ostracised.
It’s almost New Year so when you are wishing your employees a Happy New Year, why not put a ‘line in the sand’ and put the company rules and procedures in a memo covering any ‘niggles’ you may have had in 2018 eg. not following procedures for booking holidays or sickness, not following the dress code, unprofessional behaviour etc. Then if these aren’t followed going further you will be in a good position to take action without someone saying “we’ve always done that”!
The Christmas holidays are fast approaching! If you expect employees to attend work over this period and believe some of them wont, make sure that you inform them (preferably in writing) what will happen if they don’t ie. disciplinary action.
Recent Comments