Employment Practice

In recent years the relationship between employer and employed has changed fundamentally and rapidly. Such change is here to stay. Zeitgeist (the 'spirit of the time') in terms of employment is encapsulated in the four or five keys words highlighted earlier. We have a required employer: employee relationship akin more to partnership than master: servant, and where the most productive and profitable partnerships are likely to be those where this requirement is positively embraced. 21st Century Partners If partnership is to be effective it requires each 'side' to move away from confrontational attitudes and towards a realisation that mutual respect and trust may be the only way in which an improved and sustainable level of productivity and profitability can be achieved. This may be a challenge for some. A report of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, 'Impact of People Management Practices on Business Performance', concludes, ...

Regulations derived from the EU working time regulations require employers to provide paid statutory holiday (SH) for all employees and also control the maximum hours employees are able to work (and/or work without breaks) both overall and at night. Paid Holiday Entitlement All employees are entitled to 4 weeks SH within each holiday year. The allocation is reduced proportionately for those who do not work the whole year (e.g. start after its commencement and/or leave before its end). Those who work part-time are similarly entitled related to the hours they actually work (i.e. if they only work 2 hours a day then a 'day's' paid holiday is 2 hours). Where an employer grants paid holiday on a contractual basis the first 20 days (which can include paid Bank Holidays) is counted as SH. (SH is not required to be an addition to the existing entitlement, provided the latter is of at least 4 weeks duration.) If employees leave before the completion of a holiday yea...

The Public Interest Disclosure Act (colloquially known as the 'whistleblowing' Act) provides protection for those that report, or bring to the attention of the authorities, wrongdoing or the covering up of wrongdoing in their organisations after their internal protestations have been ignored. Coverage The Act has been described as a 'whistleblowers' charter, although relatively few may be able to rely on the protection it provides. It covers 'workers' - thus including employees and the self-employed, as well as agency workers and the like, and Crown servants. Protection is given to those making certain 'qualifying disclosures'. A qualifying disclosure is any information which tends in the reasonable opinion of the worker (which will be an objective test in each case) to show a relevant failure. The relevant failures include: A criminal offence has been, is being or is likely to be committed. A miscarriage of justice has occurred, is oc...

Organising labour via membership of Unions has been a right for over 100 years, although it was only in the 1960s that the Unions received their real power boost with the passing of a number of 'Union friendly' laws. This led to an abuse of power and to a reversal of some of those powers during the 1980s. Some of those reversals have themselves been reversed in recent years but to a great extent, the battles Unions fought have largely been won with the introduction of numerous employee rights. There were more new employee rights introduced between 1998 and 2002 than in the previous 20 years. Commentary Under the Employment Relations Act 1999 employers with 20 or more employees must grant automatic trade union recognition where at least 50% of those in the unit are union members. In addition, unions that have a minimum threshold of 10% of the employees in the bargaining unit and are 'more likely than not to win a ballot', can also make a claim for recogni...