The government has announced its decision to proceed with the extension of the right to request flexible working. The right will become available to all employees from 2014, provided they have 26 weeks’ continuous service. The current statutory procedure will be replaced with a duty on employers to deal with requests reasonably, and a statutory code of practice will be issued to give guidance as to how this will work in practice. Guidance will also be issued on how employers should prioritise conflicting requests received from different employees.
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Monthly Archives November 2012
Government announces plans for new flexible parental leave
The government has announced a new system of statutory parental rights to be introduced in 2015. Parents will be able to share the statutory leave and pay that is currently only available to mothers. Flexible parental leave can either be taken by each parent consecutively, or by both parents concurrently, as long as the combined amount of leave does not exceed the amount which is jointly available to the couple. Additional paternity leave will be abolished, and there will be no extension to the current statutory paternity rights. In addition the entitlement to unpaid parental leave will be extended from
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European Court decides UK must protect employees from dismissal on grounds of political opinion or affiliation
The European Court of Human Rights has decided that the UK must extend legal protection to employees dismissed on the grounds of their political beliefs or affiliation. This could be done by the UK changing the law to offer that protection, either by creating an exception to the requirement for a qualifying period for unfair dismissal, or by creating a free-standing claim for unlawful discrimination on grounds of political affiliation. The case was brought by an individual who was dismissed after being elected as a local councillor for the BNP. (Redfearn v United Kingdom)
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Settlement Agreements in a TUPE transfer may need to include all employers
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that, in a TUPE transfer situation (where typically there will be two or more employers involved), any settlement agreement needs to have each employer as a party if claims are to be waived against all of the employers. If the settlement agreement does not have an employer as a party, claims are unlikely to be waived against that employer (Tamang v Act Security Limited).
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