Analysis and commentary by Reed Smith attorneys on developments in employment and labor law
In the case of Norman and others v National Audit Office UKEAT/0276/14, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) confirmed that flexibility clauses in employment contracts which seek to give employers the right to make unilateral changes to the contract’s terms will be interpreted restrictively against employers.
In reaching its decision, the EAT overturned an Employment…
From 1 September 2013 new and existing employees can now give up certain employment rights in return for shares in their employer.
We take a look at some of the matters employers will want to consider when deciding whether to make use of this new status.Continue Reading Q & A – What does the new “employee shareholder” status mean for employers?
Zero-hours contracts have been in the news a lot recently. We take a look at their legal status, and consider the pros and cons of their use for both employers and workers.
Continue Reading Zero-Hours Contracts – A Hot Topic
It has been a busy few weeks with several new interesting employment cases being reported – here is a quick round up of a few that caught our eye:
There is yet another warning to employers on the importance of getting that contract drafting just right, as Blackburn Rovers found out to their cost (that cost being £2.25 million). And victimisation has been a hot topic in the last few weeks – we look at three new important victimisation cases below. Continue Reading Employment Law Watch – UK case law update
Today we take a brief look at a couple of interesting employment law cases from the last two weeks: Anderson v London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority shows us how not to draft a pay review clause, and HM Land Registry v McGlue looks at when aggravated damages in discrimination cases might be appropriate.Continue Reading Employment Law Watch – UK case law roundup
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has announced plans to introduce a new type of employment contract – an ‘owner-employee’ employment contract. ‘Owner-employees’ will receive between £2,000 and £50,000 worth of shares (which will be exempt from capital gains tax) in exchange for giving up certain rights, including redundancy rights, the right to claim unfair dismissal and the right to request flexible working or time off for training. Owner-employees will also be required to give 16 weeks’ notice of their return from maternity leave, rather than the current 8 weeks.Continue Reading Plans for new ‘owner-employee’ employment contracts announced
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has provided guidance on when the expiry of a fixed term contract will count toward the number of dismissals proposed by an employer that triggers collective redundancy consultation obligations.
The EAT held that employees who were dismissed by virtue of the expiry of their fixed term contracts were not dismissed for “redundancy” under the wider definition of that concept contained in s.195 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULCRA) and therefore their dismissals did not count toward the number of dismissals required to trigger collective redundancy consultation obligations under s.188 TULCRA minimum 20 employee threshold. (University of Stirling v University and College Union). This decision should be treated with caution since not all dismissals on expiry of fixed term contracts will fall outside s.188 obligations. Such dismissals may ‘count’ when the dismissals are part of a wider exercise involving job losses and in other circumstances where the dismissal does not relate to the employee’s performance or conduct.Continue Reading Expiry of fixed term contracts and UK collective redundancy consultation
In this alert we outline the main changes in UK employment law this October. The most notable piece of legislation coming into force this October is the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, but there are quite a few possible changes afoot. These include a forthcoming increase to the qualifying period for employees to bring unfair dismissal claims from one year to two years, as well as introducing fees for lodging employment tribunal claims.
Agency Workers Regulations
On 1 October 2011, the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 will come into effect. These controversial new regulations (the Regulations) will have a dramatic impact on the relationship between agency workers, agencies and hirers. They will provide increased protection to agency workers, giving them from day one equal access to facilities and amenities at work and the right to receive information about new positions within the hirer. Most importantly, after working for a qualifying period of twelve weeks, agency workers also have the same right to basic working and employment conditions as those enjoyed by workers recruited directly by the hirer. Both the hirer and the recruitment agency may be liable for breach, depending on the type of claim.
What you should be doing:
For more information concerning the basic rights of hirers and agency workers, please see our client alert.Continue Reading What’s coming up in UK employment law this October?
This post was also written by Carl de Cicco.
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (“AWR”) are due to come into force on 1 October 2011. The AWR put in place the requirements of the controversial EU Temporary Agency Workers’ Directive, which has to be implemented by 5th December this year. Last week, rumours circulated in the media that there may be a last minute “watering down” of the AWR by the present government. This seems unlikely, particularly because the AWR has already been scrutinised carefully by the new coalition government after they came into power. The Conservatives were unhappy about the proposed 12 week qualifying period which was not set out in the EU Directive. However, having conducted a review, nothing was changed because the AWR was based on an agreement between the CBI and the TUC made prior to the election and could not be changed. We will, of course, update you on any last minute changes to the AWR, but in the meantime we have prepared below a short summary of the basic elements of the AWR.
The AWR will apply to the relationships between agency workers, agencies and hirers. They offer protection to agency workers, providing them with equal access to facilities and amenities at work, the right to receive information about new positions within the hirer. After working for a qualifying period of twelve weeks, agency workers would also have the right to basic working and employment conditions that are equal to those enjoyed by workers recruited directly by the hirer. In May 2011 the government published guidance (the “Guidance”) to help hirers and agencies understand the implications of the AWR and their responsibilities under them.Continue Reading UK Agency Workers – understanding the new regulations
The Court of Appeal has ruled that an employee subject to a contractual disciplinary procedure, who was dismissed for misconduct in breach of that procedure may, in principle, recover damages for loss of future employment prospects. The case of Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust represents a significant departure from decades of established case law concerning the calculation of damages for wrongful dismissal. The decision (which we understand is being appealed) potentially opens the door to huge loss of earnings awards for employees who are unable to find alternative employment due to loss of reputation because of their dismissal.
What happened in this case?
Mr Edwards was employed by the Chesterfield Royal Hospital Trust (the “Trust”) as a consultant surgeon. In 2006 he was dismissed for gross professional and personal misconduct following a disciplinary hearing and had since then been unable to obtain work as a permanent consultant. Mr Edwards maintained that if the contractual disciplinary procedure to which he was subject had been followed correctly, he would never have been dismissed. He brought a High Court claim seeking damages for breach of his contract of employment in the sum of little under £4.3 million (including a loss of earnings claim for £3.8 million to cover his loss of employment income from dismissal to retirement at age 65).
Usually a wrongful dismissal claim would be limited to loss of earnings over the contractual notice period and, where there is a contractual disciplinary procedure, the period in which the procedure should have been followed. Since Mr Edwards’ claim went beyond this (to include loss of earnings to retirement), the Trust applied for an order from the Court that any damages which exceeded the loss of earnings over the notice period should be struck out. This matter was dealt with as a preliminary issue and for those purposes the Court only had to consider whether Mr Edwards had any real prospect of recovering, after trial, damages in excess of the loss of earnings over the notice period. For this purpose, it was entitled to assume that Mr Edwards would succeed in all the allegations made in his Particulars of Claim.
The issue finally ended up before the Court of Appeal, and the issue the Court had to consider was whether Mr Edwards was entitled to damages for loss of professional status in circumstances where, if the disciplinary proceedings had been conducted properly and not in breach of contract, he would not have been dismissed. The Court concluded that damages should not be limited to damages over the notice period and the time which the employer would have taken for the disciplinary procedure to be followed.Continue Reading Breach of contractual disciplinary procedure may lead to significant loss of earnings claims