From the 6th April as employers you should be complying with a new set of laws as legislation passed in recent months came into force. You as employees' will have new responsibilities for workers who die through your negligence and face changed sex discrimination laws.

The start of April has been a traditional time at which laws take effect, and a number of employment-related laws came into force on April 6.

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 will create a new criminal offence of corporate manslaughter, or corporate homicide in Scotland, covering deaths due to an employer's actions.

The new offence replaces the old one of gross negligence, and opens companies up to fines of up to 10% of their turnover.

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (Amendment) Regulations 2008 came into force, bringing the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 into line with the Equal Treatment Directive. Changes include an amended definition of harassment, which requires only that the harassment is related to the sex of the victim or of another person. Employers may also now be liable for gender harassment if they fail to take reasonably practicable steps to prevent repeated harassment of an employee by third parties.

A law that gives employees the right to be informed and consulted on the operation of a business has been changed so that it applies to more companies. The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations currently apply to organisations with more than 100 employees. It has changed so that it applies to any organisation with 50 or more employees, increasing the number of companies that must comply with it.

The law which governs public authorities' treatment of disabled people has also been changed to ensure that more organisations comply with its rules. The change has included for the first time public bodies such as the Civil Aviation Authority, The Bank Of England, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

copyright OUT-LAW News, 31/03/2008

Arbitration body ACAS has published a new draft Code of Practice for disciplinary and grievance procedures. If approved in its current form it will take effect when the Government abolishes the current statutory dispute resolution procedures.

The Government is scrapping the compulsory dispute resolution procedures it introduced in 2004 after a consultation process in which many contributors suggested a strengthened ACAS Code would be a better solution.

The new ACAS Code will come into effect on the day of the legal changes next April, the body said.

"The new code is a key element in the Government's plans to streamline and simplify the dispute resolution system to the benefit of employers and employees," said Pat McFadden, minister for Employment Relations. "It will complement the removal of statutory measures by establishing flexible, principles-based guidance to help resolve disputes early."

In 2004 the Government made it compulsory for employers and employees to follow a three step procedure when dealing with workplace disciplinary matters and grievances. In respect of dismissals if the employer failed to follow the statutory procedure the dismissal is automatically ruled to be unfair. The aim behind the statutory procedures was to attempt to resolve workplace disputes without the need for the employees to resort to the Employment Tribunal thereby reducing the burden on the Employment Tribunals service.

The Government asked Michael Gibbons to review its procedures and he found that the measures were a well-intentioned failure.

"In conducting the review I was struck by the overwhelming consensus that the intentions of the 2004 Regulations were sound and that there had been a genuine attempt to keep them simple, and yet there is the same near unanimity that as formal legislation they have failed to produce the desired policy outcome," said Gibbons in his report. "This is perhaps a classic case of good policy, but inappropriately inflexible and prescriptive regulation."

The Government chose to scrap the procedures with its Employment Bill, which is expected to become law next April, when some of its job will be done by the ACAS Code.

Employment law specialist Ben Doherty said that though the new Code was not a law like the old procedures, there were still incentives for employers to follow it.

"Unlike the current statutory procedures if the employer fails to follow the code it will not render that employer liable in proceedings; there is no automatically unfair dismissal consequence as with the statutory procedures," he said.

"There may still be consequences for companies who fail to follow the procedure, though," said Doherty." Though it is not compulsory to follow the Code, failure to do so will be taken into account by Tribunals when deciding the claim, and if it is successful the Tribunal may increase payouts by up to 25% if the Code is not followed. In the past the Tribunals had to increase payouts by between 10% and 50%."

ACAS said that it had shortened the Code in line with requests made during the Government's consultation process. Doherty said he thought that the more concise Code would suit everyone caught up in disputes.

"The Code is fairly short and should be easy for all employers to follow," he said. "The simplification that the Code introduces is likely to be welcomed by employers and employees alike."

ACAS's aims for the Code are similar to the aims of the statutory procedures.

"Employers and employees should do all that they can to resolve disciplinary and grievance issues in the workplace," said the Code. "Where this is not possible employers and employees should consider using a third party to help resolve the problem. Recourse to an employment tribunal should only be a last resort."

The Code is in draft form for consultation and responses will be taken until 25th July.

This rusting hulk is (was) one of the world's biggest digging machines. It now resides in an open air museum, where the captions and propaganda messages are all about the ecological folly of big digging machines. But there is an argument that this is a glorious monument to man's continuing and growing ability to impress his imprint upon nature.
And thereby, incidentally, to create all manner of interesting new habitats for other forms of nature beside man, once man has finished with using them for his original purpose. Last night I happened to watch a TV show about some defunct clay-excavation- for-brick-making site, somewhere in the Midlands I think, which has now become one of Britain's most satisfactory habitats for various particularly interesting sorts of newt. In general; the way that the First Industrial Revolution churned up the landscape and thereby made it more varied and interesting, is an under-talked-about topic.

New fines for illegal working

From 29 February 2008, a new system of penalties will come into force applying to employers who employ adults subject to immigration control in breach of the terms of entry or stay.

The penalties comprise a criminal penalty which will be triggered against those who knowingly employ illegal migrant workers and a civil penalty relating to negligent recruitment practice. Employers who knowingly hire illegal workers risk an unlimited fine and/or a prison sentence. Those who negligently hire illegal workers will face a civil penalty fine of up to £10,000 for each offence.

Increase in rates of statutory sick pay and statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay

The following statutory payments are due to increase and will take effect from 6 April 2008:

• the flat rates of statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay will increase from £112.75 per week to £117.18
• the flat rate of statutory sick pay will increase from £72.55 per week to £75.40

disfavor (verb) Put at a disadvantage; hinder, harm.

Synonyms: disadvantage

Usage: These laws clearly disfavor the underprivileged and poor because they do not address the problem of child labor.

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

William G. McAdoo
US industrialist, lawyer, & politician (1863 - 1941)

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Samuel Goldwyn, Goldwyn's Law of Contracts
US (Polish-born) movie producer (1882 - 1974)

Disclaimer - for information of users: This newsletter is published for the information of clients. It provides only an overview of the regulations in force at the date of publication, and no action should be taken without consulting the detailed legislation or seeking professional advice. Therefore no responsibility for loss occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of the material contained in this newsletter can be accepted by the authors or the fi rm.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has confirmed that where an employer terminates the contracts of its employees and subsequently offers them new contracts on different terms, the dismissals are not redundancy dismissals.

In Martland and others v Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd, changes were made to employees' terms and conditions, as the employer was suffering severe financial difficulties. Although the employer sought to achieve the variation by agreement with the recognised union, this failed. The employees' contracts were therefore terminated and new contracts were offered on different terms. Whilst some accepted the new contracts and remained, others did not, claiming they had been dismissed by reason of redundancy.

Under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA), a redundancy essentially takes place where the dismissal is attributable wholly or mainly to the fact that the employer has ceased or intends to cease to carry on business for the purposes of which the employee is employed either generally or at the employee's workplace, or the requirements of the business for employees to do work of a particular kind have ceased or diminished (or are expected to do so) either generally or at the employee's workplace.

In this case, the tribunal noted that the real issue was whether the new terms and conditions effectively required the employees to carry out work of a particular kind which was different to the work they had performed under their existing contracts. If this was the case, the dismissals were by reason of redundancy.

The tribunal concluded that the changes to the way in which the work was performed did not constitute a change in the kind of work within the meaning of ERA. The essence of the employees' jobs was selling and the changes in the method of performance did not justify the inference that there was a different kind of job being performed. This decision was upheld by the EAT as it was a decision which the tribunal was entitled to reach.

This is a useful decision for employers. It indicates that it may be possible to change employees' terms and conditions and dismiss those who do not accept them without creating a redundancy situation and being obliged to pay redundancy payments. As noted above, whether this will be the case will depend on the scope and impact of the changes.