You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2011.
In this supposedly classless age, one’s position in society should have no effect on one’s rights and responsibilities in the eyes of the law. However, this is not quite true in the employment realm, which remains Mrs Bennet-like in its fixation on status. Two recent decisions considering whether claimants had the status of ‘employee’, ‘worker’ or neither have significant implications. More
Few of us can remain untouched by the shocking events of the last few nights. While the Government and the police face the problem of bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to their senses and then to justice, the rest of the nation fearfully looks into its collective soul, and struggles to understand how such extremes of civil disobedience can have been generated. For direct victims of the violence, however, the pain is much less existential. Those who have lost their homes and all their possessions, or their family businesses, will at some point have to address the very tangible questions of what insurance they had, what their legal rights are, and how to go about rebuilding their lives. We hope we can help in some small way by addressing the legal implications for employees unable to get to work because of disruption, because their office or shop is closed due to riot damage – or because their workplaces have been burnt to the ground. More
A new survey from the CIPD, published today, claims that only one in four employees in the UK have had a pay rise this year. The BBC picked up the CIPD finding and headlined it as Pay freeze ‘for 75% of workers’. Has a blanket of pay freezes suddenly engulfed the UK or is an opinion poll of 2,000 individuals providing a misleading picture on pay increases? More
