Adrian Fryer
Eligible employees who are off sick are entitled to statutory sick pay of £96.35 per week for up to 28 weeks. The employee must earn on average £120 or more per week and must be off work for at least 4 days in a row (including non -working days). Medical evidence is usually required for statutory sick pay purposes. Most employers allow employees to self-certify absence of up to 7 days, with a GP note required for longer absences.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
The Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013 (the Rules) contains the rules on strike out. Rule 37(1) says that a tribunal can strike out all or part of a claim (ET1) or response (ET3) at any stage of the proceedings, of its own accord or following an application by either party, if:
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
The law sets out the minimum hourly rates that workers must be paid. It isn’t always as simple as simply paying that minimum rate for each hour worked. Some deductions from the worker’s pay, or payments made by the worker, are relevant and will reduce the amount of the total pay for National Minimum Wage purposes. The worker must still be left with at least the NMW after these deductions or payments are taken into account. The EAT has looked at this issue recently in Augustine v Data Cars.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
Section 6(1) of the Equality Act 2010 sets out the statutory definition of disability. A person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the Equality Act deals with recurring conditions. If an impairment stops having a substantial adverse effect, it will be treated as still having that effect if that effect is likely to recur. Likely here means that something ‘could well happen’. The Court of Appeal has looked at recurring conditions recently in a case called Sullivan v Bury Street Capital.
Continue ReadingACAS has issued updated guidance on dismissal and re-engagement, which can be accessed here.
What is dismissal and re-engagement?
Dismissal and re-engagement, also known as “fire and re-hire”, is a common (and legal) method that employers can utilise to implement changes to employees’ terms and conditions of employment. Where employees refuse to expressly agree to a change, or where employers do not have the contractual right to make changes, it is likely that terminating the existing contract on notice and offering continued employment on new terms is an employer’s best option.
Continue ReadingAddress labour market shortages by becoming an Employer Sponsor.
Bermans specialist Business Immigration team provides professional advice to UK and international businesses and investors.
Since the UK exited the EU there has been substantial changes to the immigration rules and there is an opportunity to recruit people from anywhere in the world.
Read more details about the new UK immigration system here.
Continue ReadingAn update on some recent developments
Have your say on the flexible working proposals
The Government launched a consultation on 23 September 2021 regarding proposals to reform the Flexible Working Regulations 2014 to make flexible working the default position.
Currently, an employee has the right to request flexible working arrangements after 26 weeks’ service but the employer can refuse such a request for any of the following reasons:
The duty to make reasonable adjustments is triggered if an employee meets the definition of disability contained in the Equality Act 2010. The employee must have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to do normal day to day activities. There is a common misconception that disabled employees can ask for any changes they like and say they are ‘reasonable adjustments’. The reality is somewhat different. The duty to make reasonable adjustments only arises in specific circumstances, and the requirement is to make ‘reasonable’ – rather than any – adjustments. In the recent case of Aleem v E-Act Academy Trust Limited, the EAT has looked at whether permanent pay protection is a reasonable adjustment when the employee can no longer do the job for which they were originally employed.
Continue Reading Employers must not treat an employee badly because they have made a protected disclosure. If the main reason for dismissing an employee is that they made a protected disclosure, the dismissal will be automatically unfair. Usually, it is the facts known to the person making the decision to dismiss that are relevant to an unfair dismissal claim, rather than any other facts which might be known to other employees. In Royal Mail v Jhuti, however, the Supreme Court confirmed a narrow qualification to this rule: if a manager decides that an employee should be dismissed for one reason (for example, whistleblowing) but hides that behind another false reason (such as performance or conduct) which the dismissing officer adopts, then the reason for the dismissal is the hidden reason.
The CJEU has considered another case involving rest breaks that can be interrupted at short notice and whether they meet the requirements of the Working Time Directive. Article 2 says that working time is any period of time where the worker is working, at the employer’s disposal and carrying out their duties. A rest break is any period which is not working time. There is no halfway house here – time is either working time or a rest break. A series of European cases have looked at rest breaks which can be interrupted at short notice and whether that undermines the whole point of the WTD which is to promote health and safety.
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