And if you do, do you find it useful? I’ve been “twittering” recently, getting up to speed on tweeting, retweeting and have installed tweetdeck and twitterberry on various bits of kit. Like most people, I initially thought it was a waste of time but I’m slowly becoming converted to it. I can see that it is a very useful way of passing on snippets of information about what’s going on elsewhere, and some of the tweets are very amusing. For instance check out @charonqc and his recent tweets on swineflu and wine flu. Stephen Fry’s tweets, on the other hand, are a little disappointing. I came across a tweet from @ukemploymentlaw today and she was of the view that twitter was, with the exception of her, completely uninteresting. What do you think? I haven’t had a poll for a while, so here is one to make up for the absence;
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Please sponsor Jill and Nicola
On 6th May my colleagues Jill Watson and Nicola Penny are running the 5k ”Race for Life” in Battersea Park.
They are raising money for Cancer Research UK. If you are able, please donate – Jill is an experienced runner but Nicola is braving blisters for her first ever run. The link is below;
http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/jillandnicola
In July to prove what a fit lot the firm is we will be sending out a team on the Chase Challenge here in the City. More on that later on.
The new Equality Bill
This is something we will be hearing a lot more about over the next few months and years. At last the government has introduced legislation that seeks to rationalise the current miasma of anti-discrimination legislation and bring it all into one piece of legislation.
At the moment, in the workplace environment, six types of discrimination are outlawed – age, race, sex (gender), sexual orientation, religious belief and disability. Each piece of legislation behind each type is different in certain respects so a new Act that contains all the relevant definitions, duties and defences is to be welcomed. Whether, in practice, the Equality Act (if it gets that far) will be is another matter. Undoubtedly it will change as it goes through Parliament but here are the current headlines
Friday waffle
If there are two things I like in life they are gadgets and maps (in fact there are many things I like but time here doesn’t permit). I was particularly taken by the Google Guest Map on Blawg Review, a blog carnival for the legal profession. It maps where many law bloggers are – mainly in the US because it is a US carnival – but there are a few in the UK. I’ve added myself to it and you can visit there too by following this link;
http://blawgreview.blogspot.com/2005/08/google-guest-map-w00t.html
Statutory Redundancy Pay to increase
As you will probably have heard by now, the Chancellor announced an increase to Statutory Redundancy Payment in the Budget yesterday, from the current figure of £350 to £380 per week. He hasn’t said from when the new increase will take effect and the lower figure itself was only introduced in February this year. The government is also considering further legislation on SRP rates in the next Parliament.
So, what does the increase mean? SRP is only payable (by the employer) to employees with two years’ continuous employment experience and that figure is paid to employees between the ages of 22 and 41. For qualifying employees over 41 they will receive 1.5 times £380 = £570. For those under 22 the applicable figure becomes £190 per week.
The new Grievance Procedures explained
I have just stumbled upon a blog called “Employment Tribunal Claims” (thanks to Usefully Employed for bringing it to my attention) which provides a succinct explanation of the new rules. I recommend everyone to read it and wish I had come upon it sooner. Here is the link: http://etclaims.co.uk/
(Do note the date, if in doubt)
More on Redundancy v Pay Cuts
I posted on this subject a while ago and it has received such a lot of visits I thought I better give my public more of what they want. It also gives me an opportunity to provide an update on the poll I set up below on this issue. At the moment 57% of respondents would elect a pay cut and 31% would take redundancy. The remaining 11% didn’t know. Whether those results will change after this post wil be interesting to see.
Daniel Barnett's fundraising project
Daniel Barnett is a barrister specialising in employment law. He provides a very useful (free) email update service called Employment Law Bulletin. it covers latest developments in the area and the service has just reached its 10th anniversary. To celebrate Daniel has launched a fundraising campaign to raise £10,000 for the children’s charity Starlight, which supports seriously and terminally ill children. I am delighted to support such a worthy cause and if you wish to do so as well, please go to the link below;
http://www.danielbarnett.co.uk/anniversary_fundraising.html
Good luck Daniel!
TUPE
Apart from the post below I haven’t touched upon these regulations, mainly because they are not the most interesting regulations in the world to read. However, I have been spurred on by posting on the case of Royden & others v Barnetts (see below) and TUPE comes up quite a few times on the search engines as a keyword. In future posts I will look at the TUPE issues on the insolvency of the employer as well as the consultation obligations imposed upon employers by TUPE.
So, what do the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) actually do?
The new statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedures
For T.S Eliot, April was the cruellest month. For employment lawyers it can be the busiest because of the plethora of new legislation and statutory instruments being introduced. This year is no different and today sees The Employment Act 2008 come into force, replacing the discredited Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004. In The Wasteland, TS Eliot wrote “what are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”. Admittedly Eliot was talking about the human condition and the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of modern society, rather than the 2004 regulations, but there is even so great resonance in those words for employment lawyers. Few people have had anything good to say about the rules and today they are abolished, replaced by a set of rules that are much less rigid but will give rise to other problems in the future.