Being an employment lawyer, one realizes that occasionally we are in a privileged position, sharing in times of crisis, as well as times of great stress for business owners and employees alike. To this end we experience the best and worst of human behaviour. Downright low-down cruelty, and sometimes the...

The Appeal Tribunal has handed down an important reminder about the limits of keeping conversations off the record. Where an employer wants to divest themselves of an employee, the fact that a conversation with this intention is had at all can be used to show that the employer’s mind was...

When plans of employees during pre-booked holidays fall apart for any reason, whether that be the collapse of the holiday company, or unexpected illness, different rules apply according to exactly what the circumstances are. The basic rule is that the intention of the legislation, and therefore the thing that courts...

The Appeal Tribunal has released judgment on a case looking at when a bonus expressed as being “Discretionary” becomes an entitlement. The judgment comes as no surprise to employment lawyers and follows a theme that has been followed for some years. As a general rule, if an employee comes to...

A brief reminder of forthcoming increases to the National Minimum Wage and other employment rates   From 1 April 2019, the National Minimum Wage increases as follows: Rates 2019 2018 National Living Wage (age 25+) £8.21 £7.83 Adult rate (age 21-24) £7.70 £7.38 Development rate (age 18-20) £6.15 £5.90 Young...

The Government has launched a consultation about restricting the use of confidentiality clauses in employment. This comes on the tail of the #metoo movement and is already partially covered in English Law.   Any confidentiality clause is void if it tries to prevent whistleblowing. That is to say, a public...

A claim has been brought in the European Court of Justice concerning recording hours worked by workers.   What happened A trade union brought a claim to the Spanish National High Court for a judgment that Deutsche Bank was under an obligation to record the actual daily working time of...

The question can sometimes arise as to whether an employee is disabled. This occurs often when the employee has a condition which is debilitating, but the employer argues that it is not “long-term” (this being a necessary feature of a condition if it is to be classed as a disability)....

With the year end also being the end of the holiday year for many employers, a case from the Europe Court of Justice about the ability carry over untaken holiday from one year to the next is rather timely.    The purpose of annual leave is to allow workers to...

An employer, in this case a company supplying security guards, has found retrospectively that a zero hours worker was entitled to parity in terms and conditions with those staff employed directly by the end user.   In this case, a security company provided a guard to an end user, on...