Employer can exercise
mobility clause in a redundancy situation
In
Home Office v Evans, the Court of Appeal
has confirmed that, in the particular
circumstances of this case, there was nothing to
prevent the Home Office from invoking a mobility
clause in a redundancy situation.
The
tribunal had been wrong to treat an earlier case,
Securicor v Curling, as authority for the
proposition that an employer is not legally
entitled to invoke a mobility clause in a contract
when a redundancy situation might arise or has
arisen on the closure of part of a business. The
Court therefore distinguished Curling.
The employer in this case was not entitled to rely
on the mobility obligations as a defence at the
tribunal hearing as it had already implemented the
redundancy procedure, in which the employees had
participated, and had not sought to rely on the
contractual mobility obligations until the hearing
- by which time it was considered too late to
raise a new point.
In
the present case, however, the Court stated there
was no question of the Home Office "dodging" from
one contractual procedure to another, having left
it too late to invoke the mobility obligations and
having waived its right to do so. From the time it
made the announcement to staff to close the
relevant workplace, the Home Office had made it
clear to the employees that it was invoking the
mobility obligations and would be following that
procedure, rather than the redundancy procedure,
which it consistently did.
Drunkenness at work
through alcoholism was contributory
conduct
In
Sinclair v Wandsworth Council, the
Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) recently upheld a
tribunal's finding that a dismissal of an
employee, who was an alcoholic and turned up to
work drunk on two occasions, was
unfair. The employer had failed to provide the
employee with a copy of its alcohol policy and had
failed to make it clear to the employee what steps
he needed to take to avoid dismissal.
The
EAT did, however, confirm that the tribunal's
approach was mistaken when it assessed the
reduction for contributory fault at 25%. The
tribunal had taken the view that, since alcoholism
was an illness, the employee's drunkenness at work
could not properly be characterised as
contributory conduct. The EAT confirmed this
assessment was wrong, stating that it cannot be
said that totally unacceptable conduct in an
employment context (or in a criminal context) can
be excused by reference to a background or
underlying illness. It noted that, in certain
circumstances, the protection of disability
discrimination legislation is available where
there is a link between the disability and the
conduct in question, but the present case was not
determined on a disability basis.
EAT overturns tribunal's
refusal to stay age claim pending Heyday
decision
According
to recent reports, the EAT has confirmed that, in
Johns v Solent SD Ltd, the tribunal was
wrong to strike out an age discrimination claim by
an employee who had been retired against his will.
It should have instead stayed the claim pending
the outcome of the campaign group Heyday's
challenge to the default retirement age of 65
under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations
2006, which has been referred in the European
Court of Justice (ECJ).
Whilst
the tribunal had refused the application to stay
the claim on the basis that the arguments in
Heyday had little prospect of success, it is
understood that, following the EAT's decision,
this age discrimination claim will now be stayed
until the outcome of the Heyday reference to the
ECJ. A written transcript of the judgment is
awaited.
Government's intention to
extend flexible working
The
Government has announced further measures to
extend flexible working rights to help working
parents achieve a better work life balance,
following publication of the latest "Work-Life Balance
Employer Survey".
The
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform (BERR) has commissioned an independent
review to determine how the current right to
request flexible working can be extended to
parents of older children.
The
Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform, John Hutton, said "The right to
request flexible working not only helps millions
of parents juggle work and family life, but can
also benefit business by improving staff retention
and productivity.
"We
want to do more to support families while ensuring
British businesses can compete in the global
economy, so now is the right time to consider how
we can extend the right to request to parents of
older children."
Response to consultation
on workplace representatives
Last
year, the Government launched a review of the
facilities and facility time provided to workplace
representatives. Following consultation on these
issues, the Government has now published a summary
of the responses to the consultation and outlined
its proposals.
The
summary indicates that workplace representatives
have very varied workloads and roles. Whilst some
perform few tasks and require little time off or
resource to undertake them, others perform their
representative duties on a more or less full-time
basis. The summary states that most workplace
representatives fall somewhere in between, some of
whom face problems in balancing their normal work
duties with their representative functions.
The
Government has proposed the following:
-
Non-regulatory
recommendations - these include revising and
updating the Acas Code of Practice on Time off
for Trade Union Duties and Activities; devising
new training tools to assist and encourage
employers to help line managers work
constructively with workplace representatives
and issuing a joint declaration with trade
unions and employer organisations describing the
role of modern representatives.
-
Regulatory
recommendations - these include not making any
changes to the regulatory regime governing time
off for representatives to perform their duties
and undertake training; retaining the legal
status of the Acas Code of Practice and revising
the Acas Code of Practice to provide greater
guidance on facilities, especially in relation
to the security of communications by
representatives.
Call for representative
actions to plug pay gap
The
recent survey of hours and
earnings published by the Office for National
Statistics notes that the gender pay gap now
stands at 17.2% for full-time workers. Although
the gap has narrowed, the Equality and Human
Rights Commission has, in response to the survey,
requested power to take 'representative actions'
to support individuals in the courts.
Acas adds millions to UK
economy
According
to research published
by the National Institute of Economic and Social
Research, for every pound spent by Acas, over £16
is returned. This has generated benefits worth
almost £800 million a year across UK businesses,
employees and the economy.
The
report, which analysed the six principal service
areas provided by Acas, found that its work in
resolving individual and collective disputes at
work produced immediate savings to the economy of
£313 million, while the advice and guidance
provided to employers and employees contributed a
further £475 million.