Employment Practice

Parental Leave Key points Legislation giving employees (in their capacities as parents or adoptive parents) to be granted up to 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave (18 weeks, in the case of a child awarded a disability living allowance) is to be found in Part III of the Maternity & Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999, as amended by the Maternity & Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2001, implementing Council Directive 96/34/EC of 3 June 1996 'on the framework agreement on parental leave'. Before the 1999 Regulations were amended, the right to take a period of unpaid parental leave was restricted to the parents of children born to (or placed with them for adoption) on or after 15 December 1999. Following a challenge mounted by the TUC, and the likelihood of proceedings before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the UK Government conceded that the right to parental leave should have been made available to all employed parents with children under the age of five on 15...

Overtime Employment ( Statutory restrictions ) Key points Until the coming into force, on 1 October 1998, of the Working Time Regulations 1998, there were few legal restrictions in the UK on the number of hours which an employee could be required to work. The 1998 Regulations, which extend to Great Britain only (there are cognate provisions in Northern Ireland legislation) implement Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1998 'concerning certain aspects of the organ- isation of working time'. They also incorporate Council Directive 94/33/EC of 22 June 1994 'on the protection of young people at work'. The reader will note that the protection afforded by the 1998 Regulations extends to all workers, and not just to those who are employees in the strict legal sense of the word. In short they apply to any person (casual, seasonal, freelance, trainee on work experience, agency 'temp', and so on) who undertakes to do or perform personally any work or service for a...

Notice of Termination of Employment ( Statutory minimum notice ) Key points The written statement of employment particulars (often referred to as the 'contract of employment'), given to an employee when he (or she) first starts work with an employer, must include particulars of 'the length of notice which the employee is obliged to give and entitled to receive to determine his contract of employment' (section 1(4)(e), Employment Rights Act 1996). Notice to be given by the employer By section 86(1) of the 1996 Act, a person who has been continuously employed for a period of  one month or more  is entitled to receive the following minimum notice from his employer to terminate his (or her) contract of employment: at least one week's notice of termination if he has been continuously employed for less than two calendar years; at least one week's notice of termination for each complete calendar year of continuous employment, if he has been continuously employed for ...

National Minimum Wage Key points Since the coming into force on 1 April 1999 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1998 (as amended), every UK worker aged 18 and over now has the statutory right to be paid no less than the national minimum wage (NMW) appropriate to his or her age. From 1 October 2002 to 30 September 2003, the NMW for workers aged 22 and over is £4.20 an hour. For workers aged 18 to 21, inclusive, it is £3.60 an hour. And, for workers aged 22 and over who are in receipt of 'accredited training' (on at least 26 days in their first six months of employment) it is also £3.60 an hour. At present, there is no NMW for workers under the age of 18. Certain payments made to workers (such as overtime premium payments, shift allowances, cost of living allowances, and the like) do not count towards the NMW; nor do most benefits in kind. Some deductions from pay also do not count. Deductions and payments which do or do not count towards the NMW are discussed later in thi...