Overview

• Jo Plumstead, Consultant Employment Solicitor with Setfords, looks at key indicators of employment status and highlights the differing rights and obligations of employed and self-employed workers.
• This Checklist, which covers directly engaged workers, guides you through the questions you need to ask. For information about agency workers, see the Agency Workers Checklist.

The family of an employee who was murdered at work by a colleague has been allowed to proceed with its claim that his employer was liable for his murder. They are claiming that Sainsbury’s are vicariously liable for his death under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The Court of Session rejected Sainsbury’s argument that the family would not be able to establish the sufficiently close connection between the harassment complained of and the offending employee’s employment duties for liability to arise.

Overview

 

• Vanessa Latham, Partner at Berrymans Lace Mawer, looks at why employers might agree to settle an employment dispute, when they might do this, how they might do it, and in what form it should be done.
• Tribunal claims can be costly, lead to adverse publicity and cause significant disruption to the running of your business.
• As a result, the vast majority of tribunal claims are settled before they are adjudicated by the tribunal. Vanessa offers some practical and sensible advice to employers faced with such a situation.

Various provisions in the Equality 2010 are set to be repealed under proposals announced by the Government Equalities Office (GEO). Three specific provisions are effected: the rule that employers are liable for repeated discriminatory harassment of their staff by people from outside their organisation where inadequate steps have been taken to prevent it; the ‘questionnaire procedure’ that enables people who think they have been unlawfully discriminated against to seek information and explanations from the person they believe has discriminated against them; and the power given to tribunals to recommend that an employer take certain steps to avoid others being affected by discrimination. It’s unlikely these changes will happen before 2013. See also LawTracker.

A lap dancer working at Stringfellows night club was an employee of the club rather than self-employed. Employment status is not decided by reference to the source route of the payment (in this case, the customers) and the tribunal was wrong to focus solely on the ‘wage/work’ bargain because this does not encompass all forms of bargains within employment relationships.

Far too many employers are leaving their staff in the dark about the value of their rewards and could be wasting the money they spend on salaries and benefits according to the CIPD Reward Management Survey 2012.

The immediate jobs outlook has turned positive for the first time in more than a year, driven largely by a decrease in redundancy intentions, according to the  Spring 2012 Labour Market Outlook (LMO) from the CIPD.

JMW Farms, a pig farm, has been fined £187,500 in the first successful conviction in Northern Ireland under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. JMW had pleaded guilty to health and safety failings that led to the death of one its employees.

Anyone hoping for more clarity/details on the government’s proposed employment law reforms in the Queen’s Speech will have been disappointed. The measures outlined have all been previously announced over the previous 6 months or so. What we do have however is the name and likely contents of the legislation which will take forward various reforms.

The CIPD believes there is a solid business case for extending the right to request flexible working to all staff and has urged the government to ‘hold its nerve’ and press ahead with the extension. Its report, Flexible Working Provision and Uptake, says that only a tiny minority (4%) of employers have had difficulties complying with the current right to request flexible working since it was introduced nearly 10 years ago.

The right for sick workers to carry forward untaken leave under the Working Time Directive (WTD) only applies to the 4-week minimum granted by the directive. It’s up to member states to set the conditions for any leave granted over and above this minimum entitlement. And, more interestingly, the ECJ had something to say about the length of any carry-over period during which such leave must be used – 9 months was too short.