Media
Employment Law Updates
Employment law is one of the most difficult areas of law in which to keep up to date. As if all the case law changes that make the news were not enough, the UK Government usually make changes to the law each year in April and October.
Increases to Rates and Limits
Most often these include tweaks to the various financial limits that apply to things like statutory sick pay, redundancy, maternity pay, and the national minimum wage.
This April saw the following increases being made to the national living wage and national minimum wage:
- £10.42 per hour for workers over 23 years old;
- £10.18 per hour for workers between 21 and 22 inclusive;
- £7.49 for workers aged 18 and 20 inclusive; and
- £5.28 for young workers under 18 years old.
In addition, there are increases for the following statutory payments:
- Statutory maternity/adoption pay and statutory paternity pay/shared parental increased to £172.48 per week.
- Payments for absence from work due to incapacity (statutory sick pay) increased to £109.40 per week.
- The maximum gross weekly cap for statutory redundancy payments increased to £643 per week.
Employment Law Updates
There have also been some interesting legal developments in employment law over the course of the past months.
Flexible Working
Plans are in place for flexible working rights to apply from day one of employment. At present, workers are only able to make a flexible working request after they have completed 26 weeks of service. The proposed legal reform shall also allow workers to make two flexible working requests within any 12 month period.
In addition, employees will no longer be required to set out how their employer may deal with the effects of their flexible working request. Employees currently have to show how their request would not adversely affect the business. This requirement shall be removed.
The UK Government intends on implementing primary and secondary legislation in due course.
Fire and Rehire
In response to the mass redundancies made by P&O Ferries in March 2022, the UK Government announced they would issue a statutory Code of Practice to address the practice of “fire and rehire” in the UK.
The P&O Ferries case faced media backlash due to the decision to make redundancies without consultation or notice being provided to staff.
The Draft Code of Practice was published on 24th January 2023 and sets out recommended practices including: exploring alternatives to dismissal and engaging in meaningful consultation with employees.
In particular, employers should not use threats of dismissal as a negotiating tactic to force a variation of the employee’s contract. Instead, once it is clear that the employee will not agree to the new terms, the employer should re-examine their business plan and consider the needs of the employee.
The consultation finished on 18th April 2023.
Changes to Holiday Pay Calculations
A new consultation was launched in early 2023 in relation to the calculation of holiday pay for those working for only part of the year and those working irregular hours. The consultation follows from the Supreme Court decision in Harpur Trust v Brazel which held a worker was entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday per year despite only working for a portion of the year.
The UK Government propose the law is changed to deal with this disparity and ensure those working irregular hours are paid holidays based on the hours they actually work.
The consultation closed on 9th March 2023 but there is no timeline for new legislation to be tabled.
To find out more about how our employment team can help you in any of these matters or any other employment law queries please click here.
