Have you checked the latest changes in UK’s employment law?

Employment law is continually on the change. It is very important to keep track of the most updated employment law changes for ease of work. Let’s take a detailed look at the major guidelines and updates to UK’s employment law.

The government has described details of the changes it suggests to make to employment law following the Matthew Taylor Good Work review, along with draft legislation.

Key proposals include:

·         lawgiving to improvise the clearness of the employment status tests and bring into line the employment and tax status frameworks

·         an authority to a written statement of terms and conditions for workers (as well as employees), from day one (rather than within two months)

·         a surge in the reference period, from 12 weeks to 52 weeks, for ascertaining an average week's pay for holiday pay objectives where the worker has variable pay

·         a right for workers to ask for a more fixed working pattern after 26 weeks of service

·         an alteration in legislation relating to continuity of employment, so that a break of up to four weeks between contracts will not disrupt continuity of employment (an increase from one week currently)

·         a revoke of the Swedish derogation – which presently enables agency workers to be paid less than other permanent employees in specific circumstances.

Worker Status

The Court of Appeal has supported the employment tribunal’s decision that Uber drivers are workers and were working when they had their app turned on and were prepared and willing to accept trips. Fascinatingly the judges were not common in their decision with one judge discordant with this conclusion.

Disability Discrimination

The Supreme Court has thought that an ill-health early retirement pension given to a disabled employee, on the basis of the part-time salary that he was getting before he retired, was not an uncomplimentary treatment for the resolutions of a disability discrimination claim.

New Statutory Rates

The government has published the proposed new statutory rates that will apply from April 2019:

·         Statutory maternity pay, paternity payment, shared parental pay and adoption pay will jump to £148.68 (from £145.18)

·         Statutory sick pay will jump to £94.25 (from £92.05).

Permanent health insurance

For employment lawyers in London, it is important to note that The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that an employer was in a break of an indirect term when it discharged an employee for incapacity whilst he was contractually entitled to long-term disability benefits.

The EAT held that a term could be disguised into the employment contract that, once the employee has become entitled to payment of long-term disability benefits, the employer will not dismiss him on the basis of his continuing incapacity to perform.

Disability discrimination

The EAT has held that it was not disability discrimination to dismiss an employee with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and associated amnesia for shoplifting. This was because the employee was dismissed because he had a tendency to bargain and, as this is an excepted condition, he did not have a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act.

These updates are important to employment lawyers in London.