The new shared parental leave rules apply in respect of babies due on or after 5 April 2015, which happens to be Easter Sunday this year....
The EAT has upheld a finding that two delivery drivers were unfairly dismissed when their employment was terminated on the basis of redundancy, following a change to their terms and conditions. For several years the drivers had been entitled to park their HGVs overnight at a secure facility near their homes in Stockport, and were paid for their time travelling to the employer's Wednesbury depot each day. ...
John Lewis Partnership has announced that with effect from February 2015 , when calculating holiday pay it will follow the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling last November that holiday pay must take account of non guaranteed overtime....
The Cabinet Office has published Cabinet Office Guidance on Settlement Agreements, Special Severance Payments and Confidentiality Clauses on Termination of Employment which will apply from 1 February 2015. ...
On 16 January 2015, Acas published a draft revised Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures providing new guidance relating to a worker's right to be accompanied. It confirms that an employer must agree to a worker's request to be accompanied by any chosen companion from one of the statutory categories, namely a fellow worker, trade union representative or official....
The High Court has given judgment in a case, which although it is not an employment case, considered the issue of whether a settlement agreement had settled future claims. Although the settlement agreement was, it appeared, drafted narrowly and only made reference to the specific claim number in the previous court proceedings, the court considered very carefully the statements of case of the original claims. ...
HMRC has announced that it will be withdrawing the "check off" facility, allowing union subscriptions to be collected through payroll, by the end of April 2015....
The High Court has granted an interim injunction against a union preventing it from taking industrial action in relation to an industrial action ballot that had been carried out 11 months previously. The court held that the industrial action could not be said to be continuing, and therefore at some point shortly after the previous strike the authority of the ballot to sanction industrial action came to an end....
Mediation is a voluntary and confidential form of alternative dispute resolution (www.practicallaw.com/0-107-6391) (ADR). A neutral third party is appointed by the parties who are in dispute in an attempt to reach a settlement without the involvement of the court. Depending on what you want to achieve, mediation can offer a number of advantages. Parties retain control of the decision on whether or not to settle and on what the terms of the settlement will be. It is a far cheaper means of resolving a dispute than taking matters all the way to a court hearing and mediators provide more creativity and flexibility over settlement options than the court process. It is not surprising therefore that mediation statistics indicate a high success rate, with some mediators claiming success rates in excess of 90%....
BIS has just announced the Government will make changes to regulations under the Employment Rights Act 1996 that will mean that claims to Employment Tribunals cannot stretch back further than 2 years. ...
The need for an employer to carry out a right to work check for all prospective employees is mandatory. But here at Forbury People / Employmentbuddy we have noticed that what can often be overlooked is the situation regarding TUPE transfers. When you acquire employees you must carry out these checks within 60 days of the transfer rather than 28, which used to be the case....
At the start of last year we reported that the Court of Appeal had referred the Woolworths and Ethel Austin cases to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) . These cases were considered by the ECJ on 20 November last year....
The High Court this week handed down its judgment in Unison's second application for judicial review to challenge the employment tribunal fees system. The challenge was, again, unsuccessful....
The European Court of Justice has today given judgment in the obesity and disability case involving a Danish childminder, Mr Kaltoft, that we first reported back in July of this year. The approach taken by the Advocate General, that the effects of obesity can constitute a disability, although obesity is not in itself a disability, has been confirmed, as expected. It is to be imagined that the timing of the case, as we head into the Christmas feasting period, will attract some media attention, given the present topicality of both obesity and European law....
UK consumer law – the law governing the rights of consumers supplied with goods and/or services by businesses – is currently set out in dozens of separate pieces of primary and secondary legislation, some of which date from the 1970s. This time last year, the Government introduced the Consumer Rights Bill, with a view to consolidating into one statute much of the existing law, modernising the law in some key areas (such as digital content) and giving more teeth to consumers, public enforcers and private enforcers (currently only Which? is in this last category). The Bill has now been through both Houses, though some amendments are still being dealt with, and is expected to come into force in October this year (general election notwithstanding)....
Employmentbuddy's latest article gives you a helpful timeline of this year's important dates that could affect your business...
There is no denying that the solar energy industry has enjoyed great growth in recent years and with the cost of solar energy decreasing then this can only mean the sector will continue to thrive in the near future....
Although not an employment case, the case brought against the bus company, FirstGroup, and reported this week has raised some interesting issues on what is a reasonable adjustment. The question was whether it was a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010 to require a bus company to have a policy requiring non-wheelchair using passengers to move if occupying a space required by a wheelchair user?...
In another case relating to holiday leave, The Sash Window Workshop Ltd and another v King UKEAT/0057/14, comments by the EAT suggest that workers will be entitled to carry holiday over to the next leave year where they are unable to take their holiday for reasons beyond their control, as an exception to the usual rule that holiday entitlement expires at the end of a leave year. This is already the case if the reason for not taking the leave is the worker's sickness (following NHS Leeds v Larner [2012] IRLR 825), but now the scope of the exception seems to be wider....
Planning obligations form part of the planning process and will usually be invoked by the local planning authority when a planning permission is sought by a developer. They are used to mitigate the impact of new buildings on the local community and infrastructure, and are imposed by a Section 106 Agreement which is a legal agreement between the applicant seeking planning permission and the local planning authority....