Discipline & Grievances Changes

The Employment Act 2008 received royal assent on 13 November last year. In addition to repealing the procedures, the Act will remove the provisions relating to procedural unfair dismissal (the so called partial Polkey reversal) and will introduce to the employment tribunals discretion to increase or reduce awards by up to 25% where either side unreasonably fails to comply with the new Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) code of practice.

Family Friendly

From 6 April 2009 the right to request flexible working will be extended to parents of children aged 16 and under. Currently, the right is restricted to parents of children under six (or disabled children under 18), and carers of adult (18+) dependants.

Maternity

In 2009 we should get more detail of European proposals to increase the period of compulsory maternity leave to six weeks. This will impact employer bonus schemes. While employers generally can reduce pro rata a contractual bonus for absence due to maternity leave, this is not the case for the period of compulsory maternity leave (currently two weeks in the UK).

Again for 2009, the plans to extend statutory maternity pay to 52 weeks and introduce additional paid paternity leave effectively allowing both parents to share the maternity leave period have been delayed. The earliest possible is now April 2010.

In June we should also have the outcome of the European Commission's review of parental leave.

Agency Workers & Working Time

The UK has finally agreed to the new Temporary Workers Directive (TWD), subject to a 12 week qualifying period applying in the UK. The Directive will provide agency workers with the right to equal treatment in basic working and employment conditions with employees of the end-user.

The government recently announced that it hopes to introduce the measures into UK law during the current Parliamentary session. However, the government is coming under increasing pressure to delay introduction until 2011.

The ending of the deadlock over the TWD, was possible due to a political agreement also being reached by the Council of Ministers over the future of the Working Time Directive (WTD). Under this agreement, the UK would be allowed to keep the 48 hour working week opt-out, subject to some significant new conditions, most notably an overall cap of 60 hours and no opt-outs permitted during the first four weeks of employment. Also, a new category of inactive on-call time would be introduced.

While the European Parliament accepted the political agreement in relation to the TWD allowing its smooth passage into European law, the WTD revision is having a very bumpy ride.

The European Parliament has rejected the agreement struck by the Council and is continuing to push for the ending of the opt-out in the next three years.

The new Czech President of the EU has pledged to seek a compromise. No doubt the Commission, who thought they finally cracked years of deadlock, will not relish having again to chip away at the stalemate.