UK Employment Law Update

If 2023 was the year that generative AI entered mainstream consciousness, 2024 will be the year generative AI became part of mainstream establishment following an explosion of growth in users, both commercial and personal.

Full disclosure from the outset: This article is not a product of generative AI and does not discuss the technology and advancements of AI models. Rather this article seeks to highlight some of the workplace issues that may be facing organisations as generative AI becomes an integral part of our working lives.

The discussions of the benefits and pitfalls of generative AI and models such as Google Bard, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, ChatGPT and DALL-E have been widespread, and show no sign of abating. The number of organisations expanding or implementing the use of predictive AI and generative AI models is ever increasing, as is the number of employees becoming aware of the benefits of using AI models in their own daily tasks.

Whilst AI is by no means a new concept, the integration of generative AI models into organisations has been exponentially rapid. A survey undertaken by KPMG in March and June 2023 found that 20% of businesses were already using generative AI and 67% of executives confirmed that budget was allocated towards generative AI technology.

Continue reading “AI in the Workplace ‒ Embrace or Evade?”

On 1 January 2024, the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 became law, bringing into force a number of amendments to the right to annual leave and the right to holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations 1998.

Further changes will become effective next week, on or after 1 April 2024, regarding holiday pay and entitlement to irregular hours and part-year workers.

Continue reading “No Spring Break in Calculating Holiday Pay!”

The first of April is synonymous with April Fools’ Day ‒ and this year, the date will also be anticipated by many as the first day of British Summer Time. However for UK employers, 1 April 2024 also marks the beginning of a month in which a number of employment law changes come into effect. These laws will impact workers across all sectors irrespective of the employer’s size or industry.

It is essential that employers are aware of these employment law changes and are ready for the impact on their current policies and practices. To assist, we have set out reminders of the key forthcoming changes and the actions that employers should now be taking.

Continue reading “Spring Clean Your Employment Policies”

In last week’s update on Labour’s proposed policy reforms, we discussed action taken by the government in response to P&O Ferries’ dismissal of nearly 800 employees in 2022 without due consultation.

The government first announced a new statutory code on 29 March 2022 which sought to introduce measures around “fire and rehire” practices ‒ a term referring to when employers dismiss employees and then re-engage them on new contracts with often less favourable terms. There then followed the first draft Code of Practice on Dismissal and Re-engagement, which was published over a year ago in January 2023.

Last week, on 19 February 2024, following a 12-week consultation, the government published an updated draft Code of Practice on Dismissal and Re-Engagement with the intent to “crack down on employers mistreating employees”.

The draft code states that: 

Continue reading “Updated Code on ‘Fire and Rehire’ ‒ Cracking Down or Lacking Bite?”

The London Times has reported again on Labour’s proposals for a radical reform of UK employment law. The Times reports that Sir Keir Starmer has framed Labour as the “party of business” ‒ but in our view, the pledges in Labour’s “new deal for working people” perhaps jar with that definition.

As we have reported previously, Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, promises a “revolution” in employment law legislation within 100 days of an election of a Labour government.

Depending on your view, the reforms are either an exciting and necessary change to enable a fair employment deal ‒ or are worrying and potentially very expensive for employers and likely to cause more workplace disputes. In this update, we delve into some of the most critical of these proposed reforms.

Continue reading “More News on Labour’s Proposed Employment Law Revolution”

2024 promises to be a busy year for employment legislation and there are still more proposals of change this week from the Labour Party with the announcement of their plans to expand discrimination legislation.

In widely reported commentary this week, Labour proposes to introduce the following reforms to discrimination legislation under their planned Race Equality Act:

• Additional requirements for organizations to include mandatory reporting and training obligations;
• An extension to equal pay claims to cover claims based on ethnicity and disability; and
• The introduction of the right to claim dual discrimination.

Continue reading “And There’s More: Labour Party Manifesto Proposals on Employment Law”

Does an employee who delays resigning following a fundamental breach of contract lose the right to bring a constructive unfair dismissal claim on the basis that they have affirmed the contract given the passage of time between the breach and the resignation?

Two recent cases heard before the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) provide helpful guidance in confirming that where there is a delay between an alleged fundamental breach of contract and the employee’s resignation, the delay itself does not necessarily amount to the employee affirming the contract.

Continue reading “Constructive Unfair Dismissal ‒ Affirming the Breach of Contract”

As we enter into 2024, discussions continue regarding employees’ physical attendance in the workplace. For many employers, the uncertainty following the pandemic of how best to structure their working practices for both business efficacy and employee satisfaction led to a lack of clearly defined terms regarding minimum levels of attendance in the workplace.

Whilst many employers and employees have benefited from hybrid working practices, there are challenges for employers who are seeking to increase their employees’ workplace attendance, which includes considerations regarding whether changes in working patterns―such as hybrid or remote working―were contractually agreed to or whether these working patterns have become implied terms of employment.

As some employers seek to increase the level of employees’ workplace attendance, there has been a subsequent increase in flexible working request from employees wanting to maintain their hybrid or remote working patterns. This is expected to further increase from April of this year when the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 comes into force and the right to make a flexible working request becomes a “day one” right (as set out further below).

Continue reading “Flexible Working Requests ‒ The Importance of Consideration and Communication in Refusal”

As 2023 came to a close, so did the supremacy of EU law and all directly effective EU rights. Now it will be for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 to set out how EU derived case law and legislation will be used in the UK moving forward in 2024.

However, post-BREXIT employment reform is only one of a number of areas of change in 2024 that employers need to be aware of. From a day one right to flexible working requests, proactively preventing sexual harassment, statutory leave for carers, to the largest ever cash increase in the national minimum wage, 2024 will see many changes for employers and employees. Below is our summary of what this year will bring in employment law together with key dates to note and links to the legislation.

Continue reading “Looking Ahead to Employment Law Changes in 2024”

The Fees Regime 2013

The level of the 2013 fee regime categorised ET claims into Type A or Type B claims with different fees payable for each type. Type A claims (which covered simple disputes such as unpaid holiday pay) attracted an issue fee of £160 and a hearing fee of £230 and Type B claims (which covered more complex disputes such as discrimination) attracted an issue fee of £250 and a hearing fee of £950. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) attracted a £400 issue fee and a £1,200 hearing fee.

The Tribunal Fees Order coincided with a decline in cases being presented to the ET and was subsequently quashed by the Supreme Court on 26 July 2017 in the case of R (on the application of Unison) v Lord Chancellor UKSC 51 for being an “unlawful interference with the common law right of access to justice.” 

On 29 January 2024, the UK government announced the launch of an eight-week consultation period regarding the proposal to reintroduce “modest fees” in the ET. In the announcement, it was made clear that the Ministry of Justice had “carefully considered” the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Unison decision and recognised that the level of fees introduced in 2013 “did not strike the right balance between meeting the policy objective for claimants to meet some of the costs of the ET and EAT and protecting access to justice” and their approach to setting the proposed fees in 2024 would be based on three key principles of affordability, proportionality and simplicity.

Continue reading “Will 2024 See the Reintroduction of Fees in the UK Employment Tribunals?”