Employment Practice

Key points From 6 April 2003, an employee who has been newly-matched with a child for adoption, or whose partner has been newly-matched with a child for adoption, or who is one of a couple who have been newly matched with a child for adoption (in each case, by an approved adoption agency), and who has been continuously employed by his or her employer for 26 weeks or more leading into the week in which notification of being matched occurred, has the right to take up to 26 weeks' ordinary adoption leave, followed immediately by up to 26 weeks' additional adoption leave. An employee with average earnings of £75 or more per week will qualify to be paid statutory adoption pay (SAP) during his or her ordinary adoption leave period. The relevant legislation is to be found in the Paternity & Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 which came into force on 8 December 2002. Note By definition, the right to adoption leave is not available to a step-father or mother who

Key points Under the common law, an employer cannot be compelled either to employ a particular job applicant or to reinstate or re-engage someone who has been dismissed. As Lord Davey remarked in Allen v Flood [1898] AC 1: 'An employer may refuse to employ [a workman] for the most mistaken, capricious, malicious or morally reprehensible motives that can be conceived, but the workman has no right of action against him.' And again: 'A man has no right to be employed by any particular employer, and has no right to any particular employment if it depends on the will of another.' Although an employer retains his (or her) common law right to pick and choose the people he employs, there may be a price to pay for exercising that right. In short, an employer can be ordered to pay compensation to a job applicant if a tribunal or court is satisfied that the employer acted unlawfully in refusing (or deliberately omitting) to employ the person concerned on grounds

Absenteeism Key points * Employers should have no need to remind employees that they are expected to turn up for work on time and to remain at their desks or workstations until the end of their working day or shift. People who are routinely late for work, or who take extended lunch breaks, or who are in the habit of slipping away early, or who take an unauthorised day off every now and again to attend the funeral of yet another distant relative, are putting their jobs at risk. They are in breach of their contracts of employment and should not be surprised if their employer decides that 'enough is enough'. The reasonable employer * The reasonable employer will first seek out the malingerer, invite him (or her) into his office 'for a chat', listen to his explanations and (if those explanations are unacceptable or incredible) warn him that he will be dismissed if he does not mend his ways. Fortunately, most malingerers are quickly identified and uprooted -