Thanks to the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, which came into force on 1 October 2011, workers who are hired through an agency will soon acquire equal treatment rights with regard to basic working and employment conditions as if they had been recruited directly by the hirer. Although some rights (including in relation to access to [...]
It struck me just yesterday (over a very nice lunch with some female headhunter friends) that of the various partner team moves we have advised on over the last year or so, absolutely none of the teams were led by women partners and only about a third even included women at all. Why is that? [...]
Over the weekend the Sunday Telegraph reported that agency truck drivers providing services to Tesco have been asked to sign contracts waiving certain rights under the new Agency Workers Regulations 2010. This is not however a great surprise: it would seem that Tesco is merely seeking to take advantage of the so-called ‘Swedish Derogation Model’, [...]
After having its implementation delayed a number of times, the Bribery Act 2010 (the “Act”) finally came into force on 1 July 2011. Last Friday marked the first prosecution under the new Act but was not what many had been expecting: the bribe in question being for a measly £500. And after much talk and [...]
The Coalition Government has today announced that the length of time you need to be employed to bring an unfair dismissal claim will be raised from one to two years with effect from April 2012. This change has been introduced following the Coalition Government’s ‘Resolving Workplace Disputes’ consultation which was commenced in response to concerns raised by employers about an apparent [...]
The recent riots in London, were in some part, coordinated through the use of Twitter and Facebook. The speed, broad reach and accessibility of the social networking sites proved to be a dangerous tool for some individuals inciting violence. Once again, in the transatlantic employment law world, the use of social media has come under [...]
On May 24th 2011, regulations and accompanying interpretive guidance to implement the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008 will come into effect in the United States. The main effect of these regulations is to broaden the definition of disability so as to move an employer’s focus from whether or not an employee is disabled [...]
At a recent cross border law conference in Toronto, I was fascinated by the presentation on the meteoric rise of social networking in the workplace. The statistics for Facebook are simply staggering – over 500 million active users, 24 million of whom are in the United States alone. The presentation prompted an interesting discussion on [...]
With 03 April fast approaching and, with it, the Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010 coming into force, the cost of employing parents could be set to get more expensive for employers. Such changes have made us think about the changing roles men and women are now taking on generally. Gone are the days when the [...]
Following our blog of 4 January, there are reports in today’s press confirming that the government is proposing to raise the length of time you need to be employed to bring an unfair dismissal claim from one to two years. The proposal, on which the government is consulting, is in response to concerns raised by employers about an apparent increase in unjustified [...]
