Defence Secretary Liam Fox has been defending cuts to the armed forces which will reportedly see around 12,000 jobs being cut from the Army and RAF combined. This week alone 930 RAF and 920 Army personnel are being told that they will be made redundant. The political parties are typically each blaming eachother for the redundancies, the Government effectively says it inherited a mess...
Are you aware of the pensions auto enrolment reforms? According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development`s (CIPD) survey, 53% of workers in private and voluntary sectors are totally unaware of the pension reforms....
Another century of pay inequality? The BBC reports today on a study that claims the gender pay gap will last for another 98 years....
Results of research published this week predict that obesity rates in the UK will have risen to 40% of the population by 2030....
CIPD research has shown that, despite the government`s immigration cap, the number of firms planning to recruit migrant workers has risen. Out of organisations who took part in the institute`s summer Labour Market Outlook survey, 25% said they planned to recruit migrants in the next quarter. This is a rise of 22% from the survey carried out in the spring. Six in ten employers saw a lack of job-specific skills in the UK as the reason for continuing to look abroad....
Buddy put together a survey for Buddy members covering the Government`s proposals to change employment law with the aim of encouraging a more flexible and family friendly approach at work, as set out in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Consultation on Modern Workplaces. The results proved very interesting and enabled us to gauge your opinion and feed this into the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Consultation Working Group, which Clarkslegal was invited to join. The CBI has now published its response to the Consultation with the aim of influencing policymaking, to gain the best deal for employers. We would like to give a big thank you to everyone who gave their time to complete the survey and giving Clarkslegal a hand in lobbying the government! The consultation has now closed, with a response from the Government expected in November 2011. The Government`s proposals and the response to the proposals from both Buddy`s survey (from employer "Respondents" shown in blue) and Clarkslegal/CBI (shown in italics), are set out below....
The case of Ricketts v Parson Cross Domestic Abuse Project ET/2802125/10 will act as a reminder to employers of the importance of dealing with disciplinary matters consistently. In this case the Claimant, who the Tribunal accepted had attended work under the influence of alcohol, won her claim of unfair dismissal The Claimant was employed as a support worker for domestic abus...
The results of a survey of over 1000 employees by the world’s largest executive recruitment business Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann have revealed that good communication skills, integrity and motivational skills are valued as the most important leadership qualities by employees. The majority of the respondents to the survey however felt that the management in their organisation was lacking in su...
The employee, Adrian Ruda who was from Poland, worked at an engineering company in Wakefield in 2007. In 2010 he brought a number of claims against the company, including race discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination. The basis of his race claim was that the nickname given to him by his colleagues of “Borat”, a character from Kazakhstan created by Sacha Baron Cohen of Ali...
Following on from out previous blogs regarding employees who were dismissed for comments made on social networking site Facebook (one of which was held to be fair, the other unfair) it has been widely publicised today that Argos has sacked an employee suffering from cancer after he complained about his job on the site. David Rowat, a 56 year old father of three was sacked for alleged gross misco...
The results of the Aviva Health in the Workplace survey published this week show that almost 1 in 3 (30%) of workers are unlikely to regularly take a lunch break during the working day. Although this number is still high, it has fallen by 7% since the 2009 survey results were received. As well as the third who regularly don’t take their lunch break, a further 25% will not have a break if t...
The EAT has held in Connolly v Whitestone Solicitors UKEAT/0445/10/ZT that the question the tribunal should have asked when considering if it was contrary to public policy to allow an unfair dismissal claim to proceed, was whether the Claimant had claimed self-employed status with Her Majesty`s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) knowing that he was not entitled to do so, thereby misrepresenting his employment status. The decision provides clarity as to what the Court of Appeal meant by ‘misrepresentation` in Enfield Technical Services v Payne [2008] EWCA Civ 393....
Buddy reported at the beginning of August on the employment tribunal case of the former Governor of the Tower of London, Major-General Keith Cima. He was sacked by Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) for allegedly calling Beefeaters "thick" and "the lowest of the low" and for criticising his employers. In defence, one of his claims was that he was forced out of his job after he stood up to ‘bullies` tormenting Moira Cameron, the first woman to join the Beefeaters....
Richard Bruton, Enterprise Minister for Ireland, has launched a consultation regarding the merger of the five Irish employment rights bodies: the Labour Court (the Irish equivalent of Employment Tribunals), the Labour Relations Commission, the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA), The Employment Appeals Tribunal and the Equality Authority. Bruton said that the country`s “employment...
According to a poll by recruitment website Monster, almost 3 in 4 workers (69%) would not inform bosses if they felt a colleague was not performing. 58% of respondents to the survey would instead to try to help their friend improve their work. A further 11% replied that if their boss did notice it was not their concern. The remaining 31% of employees however reported that they would inform their...
Leading advisory firm, Ernst & Young are advising employers that the best way to identify fraud within their business is to send employees on extended holidays. Apparently, whilst the employees are away their colleagues are more likely to discover any irregularity. They believe that by forcing employees to take a break of at least two weeks fraud in Britain could be reduced by millions of pou...
Some drafting errors in the original Agency Workers Regulations 2010 have now been corrected....
The news pictures of the London Riots make depressing viewing. It`s heartbreaking to hear stories of businesses that have taken years to build up being destroyed in minutes. This is especially so, given that these businesses are already fighting for survival on an economic front....
Until recently, when a male employee would announce he and his partner were going to be parents, the biggest impact on a small business might have been the cost of a round of drinks bought to whet the baby`s head! That`s all changed following the recent introduction of Additional Paternity Leave. Now the impact on small businesses is potentially much greater....
An employer who successfully defended an Employment Tribunal Claim has been awarded a record £100,000 in costs against the Claimant in the case. The female employee had brought a claim of sexual discrimination and harassment, alleging that her boss had subjected her to offensive and degrading comments including discussing breast sizes and calling her a sexy nurse. The Tribunal found her c...