HR Articles

The budget, announced last week, contained some interesting employment law developments.

The government has been heavily defeated in the House of Lords over proposed trade union reforms to how the unions fund political parties. The government’s proposal is to require union members to "opt in" to paying a political levy, rather than opt out, as under the current long standing system. Labour believes three million fewer members of the biggest unions would agree to pay into them, costing it at least £6m in annual revenue.

The Government’s plans to change Sunday trading rules (see our blogs in August last year and February this year) have been rejected by the House of Commons.

The Immigration Bill 2016, which is working its way through Parliament, contains a requirement on public authorities to ensure that their workers (including agency workers) who are in customer-facing roles speak fluent English (or Welsh in Wales). Customer-facing roles are described as those which require workers to speak to members of the public (both face to face and on the telephone) as a ‘regular and intrinsic’ part of their role.

In the conjoined cases of Cox v Ministry of Justice and Mohamud v WM Morrison Supermarkets plc, the Supreme Court had to consider two aspects of vicarious liability. Firstly, whether an employment relationship is necessary for vicarious liability to apply and secondly, whether an employer can be held liable for the criminal acts of its employees.

In October 2015 the Government consulted on proposed changes to the “Conduct Regulations”, which govern the recruitment sector. The response to the consultation was published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) last week and confirms the Government’s intention to proceed with the majority of the proposals within the consultation.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has upheld the employment tribunal’s finding in the case of Lock v British Gas that the Working Time Regulations (“WTR”) can be interpreted so as to be compatible with the EU Working Time Directive, with the effect that results-based commission payments should be included in the calculation of holiday pay.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has today handed down its judgment in the case of Lock v British Gas and found in favour of Mr Lock.

In the case of Bone v North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust [2016], the Court of Appeal reinstated a tribunal’s decision that an employer’s failure to deal with hostility towards a union member was unlawful detriment. Workers are protected against suffering a detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by their employer if the act or failure to act takes place for the sole or main purpose of preventing or deterring them from taking part in trade union activities at an appropriate time.

The European Court of Human Rights' Judgment in a Romanian employment dispute has been widely reported in the national press as giving the green light to employers to monitor employees' personal emails and electronic messages on work systems. Not surprisingly, the press coverage over-simplifies the effect of this particular ruling and employers need to continue to tread very carefully when monitoring personal emails and other electronic communications.