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October's Employment Law update

Employment Law update

Welcome to this month’s employment Law update. This month we take a look at some key changes that have taken effect from 1 October that all organisations need to be aware of, last years Employment Tribunal statistics, and a recent employment tribunal to make the news…

• Employment Law changes – 1 October 2011 round up
• Employment Tribunals – The Statistics
• In the Employment Tribunals

Employment Law changes – 1 October 2011 round up

National minimum wage increase

The main rate of the national minimum wage was raised from £5.93 to £6.08 per hour.

The rate for 18-20 year olds increased from £4.92 to £4.98 per hour, the rate for workers aged 16 and 17 from £3.64 to £3.68 per hour, and the apprentice rate from £2.50 to £2.60 per hour.

Agency Workers Regulations (AWR)

The AWR give agency workers the entitlement to the same basic employment and working conditions as if they had been recruited directly, if and when they complete a qualifying period of 12 weeks in the same job.

In addition, from the first day of their assignments, agency workers will be entitled to the same access to job vacancies and collective facilities as permanent members of staff, such as staff canteens, childcare facilities and transport services.

Abolition of the default retirement age (DRA)

Transitional arrangements for the removal of the default retirement age in the UK have been in force since 6 April, moving to a pull phase out from 1 October. Since April, employers have been prevented from issuing new notifications of retirement using the default retirement age.

If however, employers can objectively justify their reasons for doing so, they may operate a compulsory retirement age.

Retirements that were already in motion prior to this date can continue through to completion if the employee reaches the age of 65 (or the employer’s normal retirement age if that is higher) on or before 30 September. This means that no employee who turned 65 on or after 1 October can be retired under the default retirement age.

Employment Tribunals – The Statistics

The annual employment tribunal statistics for 2010-2011 have been published.

Employment Tribunals received an overall total of 218,100 claims during 2010-11, an 8% decrease compared to the previous year (but a 44% increase on 2008-09).

The number of redundancy pay claims has decreased, and the number of age discrimination claims has increased, and could be set to continue that way if employers are unaware of the changes to the default retirement age.

In the Employment Tribunals

A worker who was sacked after criticising her workplace on Facebook was unfairly dismissed, an Employment Tribunal has ruled.

EA Whitham was dismissed by her company, after she posted comments about her workplace last September.

Two of Whitham’s colleagues, who were also her Facebook ‘friends’, reported the comments to Whitham’s line manager. The company conducted a disciplinary hearing and went on to suspend her before later summarily dismissing her for gross misconduct, despite Whitham writing a remorseful letter of apology for her comments, the ruling said.

The company was wrong to sack Whitham because the reasons given for her dismissal were not reasonable, the Tribunal ruled. The company had claimed that Whitham’s comments had put the firm’s reputation “at risk” and had the potential to ruin its relationship with a key client.

Under the Employment Rights Act an employer can successfully defend against claims of unfair dismissal if they show that, “in the circumstances”, the reasons for dismissal involved the conduct of the employee and that it “acted reasonably … in treating [the employee’s conduct] as a sufficient reason for dismissing the employee”.

The Tribunal said that, even discounting the unreasonable reasons the company had claimed to justify dismissing Whitham, it was still “outside the band of reasonable responses” for the company to sack her.

The case proves that organisations need to consider a wide variety of factors when dismissing employees, and that they it is key to develop strong policies on using social networks. If you’d like to find out about how Ceridian’s HR Consultancy Services can help you to stay compliant, please call 0800 0482 737.