Category: "news"
Guilty until proven innocent? Why the burden of proof change matters
The Employment Appeal Tribunal’s judgment in the case of Efobi v Royal Mail was published recently, and at first glance many people seem to have thought that it was a bit of a technical point, or just legal nit-picking, which wouldn’t make any difference to how things... read more »
FAQs - Drug and alcohol testing in the workplace
In this article, we answer some frequently asked questions employers have around drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. Q: Can we implement a drug screening procedure to monitor our employees at work? A: Employers may be able to implement drug screening of their employees provided there are health and safety justifications... read more »
Tribunal fees update
As Nicola reported in her article last month, Employment Tribunal fees have been ruled to be unlawful by the Supreme Court. The effect of the ruling is that the fees regime has been held to have been unlawful from the time it was introduced in 2013.... read more »
Restrictive Covenants – the importance of precise drafting
Senior employees will often have a lot of knowledge about their employer’s business, its customers and suppliers. Indeed, this is often essential for them to perform their job properly. However, that same knowledge can become a threat when the employee leaves their employment and goes to work for a competitor... read more »
Headline news – no more Tribunal fees
If you have been reading the news this week, you can’t have missed that one of the most important cases affecting employment law has finally been decided by the Supreme Court after many years of litigation. Employment Tribunal fees have been found to be unlawful and can no longer... read more »
The Taylor review – tailored to the gig economy?
The long-anticipated Taylor review of modern employment practices was published on 11 July 2017. The review, led by Matthew Taylor (chief executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), calls for a “significant shift in the quality of work in the UK... read more »
Whistleblowing update
As we have covered in previous articles, employees who do not have sufficient length of service to claim unfair dismissal sometimes try to bring a whistleblowing claim, as there is no minimum length of service required, and no cap on the amount of compensation that can be awarded by the... read more »
Humour in the office – some cautionary tales
Many of us spend a good part of our waking time at work, and most people would recognise that a work place with no humour would be a sad place to be. In addition, a recent study by academics at Yale University concluded that a worker or... read more »
FAQs: the right to be accompanied
Employees and workers have a legal right to be accompanied by a trade union representative or colleague at a disciplinary or grievance hearing. This right is set out in section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999. This may strike you as quite straightforward, but actually employers can face many... read more »
Sleep ins and National Minimum Wage – the latest
As we have covered in our previous ebulletins, the position regarding pay for workers who carry out ‘sleep in’ shifts (sometimes also known as ‘on call’ or ‘standby’ shifts) has been the subject of a number of decided cases. However, although there have been several cases which found... read more »