Friday July 1, 2011 at 5:43am
The Supreme Court has just ruled that it was not a breach of an employee's human rights to refuse him the right to be accompanied by a lawyer at a disciplinary hearing. The case concerned a teaching assistant who was alleged to have acted inappropriately towards a pupil at the school at which he worked. This judgment is of significance to public sector employers, which should now be aware that an employee is not automatically entitled to legal representation at a disciplinary hearing that m....
Tuesday May 31, 2011 at 10:38am
There has been much discussion about the Baby P case and Sharon Shoesmith's successful application to the Court with the ruling which in effect it reinstates her.
Compensation and legal costs in the two-year case could cost the council and the government more than £1m, although ministers have said they will seek approval from the supreme court to appeal.
Although the ruling said compensation was a matter for Shoesmith and the council, it added that "it would b....
Wednesday May 11, 2011 at 9:52am
According to the Guardian, the government is to extend its review of employment law to tighten up discrimination compensation and dilute rules protecting employees' rights when a business is transferred from one owner to another.
Lib Dem minister Ed Davey will announce the new areas up for review at the Institute for Economic Affairs today as the government attempts to clear away restrictions for employees. It will consider moving on discrimination compensation and Transfer of Undertakings (Pr....
Tuesday May 10, 2011 at 9:56am
According to an XpertHR study the amount of time spent by employers resolving individual workplace conflict has increased in more than 40% of UK organisations. The most common reasons given by the employee for the individual dispute are dissatisfaction with their line manager, perceived bullying and harassment and a personality clash.
This strikes me as accutate and consistent with my experience of workplace problems.
What are the solutions to dealing with problems like these?
1 Bo....
Monday May 9, 2011 at 9:58pm
There is an exorable force towards the use of mediation within Court processes within the UK, Europe and beyond.
Little wonder, many governments are needing to save and the appeal of using mediation is to save Court costs and government exchequers their pennies, pounds, euros and dollars.
Within different areas of law, beit commercial, employment or family, we are heading to compulsion of mediation.
Yet, not everyone is happy.
In Italy, a new law requiring media....
Thursday April 7, 2011 at 6:45am
An appeal case is taking place next week that could have far-reaching implications for the way in which future disciplinary hearings take place. The case, R (on the application of G) v The Governors of X School, will be heard by the Supreme Court next week in which employees should be allowed legal representation at disciplinary hearings.
This issues to be decided case deal with the test for the applicability of art.6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights and ....
Friday March 18, 2011 at 6:17am
Some of the work which my firm has done is to help develop internal mediators within an organisation.
Essentially an organisation which has a number of employment disputes recruit a firm like mine and we train a number of people to become internal mediators. They deal with the internal disputes.
One of the questions is do internal mediators work? is the training of internal mediators worth the investment?
The simple answer is that they can be, but it does require a high commitment from&n....
Wednesday February 16, 2011 at 4:18pm
I understand that there will be an announcement about the transitional provisions abolishing the default retirement age, which are expected to be published later this week. According to PLC, the transitional provisions will provide for the default retirement age to survive until 6th April 2012 (not 30th September 2011 as previously thought), provided the employee has reached 65 on or before 30th September 2011.
This allows for up to 12 months' notice of intention to retire to be issued before ....
Tuesday February 15, 2011 at 10:20pm
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has conducted a study which found that intentions of employers regarding redundancy had peaked since the study began in 2004.
In every ten organisations, four were planning redundancies during the first quarter of the year, the survey revealed. These numbers included a third of NHS employers, 50 per cent of central government staff and three-quarters of those working within local government departments.
This is all old hat to those who watch....
Tuesday February 15, 2011 at 11:35am
I read that the Army has apologised after a reported 38 soldiers learned they were losing their jobs by e-mail. The Sun said the men - all long-serving warrant officers and including one serving in Afghanistan - were told they were victims of the defence cuts with the soldiers each received a message giving them one year's notice and advising them to "start planning your resettlement". Not surpising that this news got out. To some extent the Army have limited legal rights; They do not ....
Monday January 17, 2011 at 8:59am
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) is to launch a legal challenge over changes to the civil service redundancy scheme, as its members voted overwhelmingly to reject the reforms. PCS will go to the High Court this week in the row over the cuts, which cap the payouts to civil servants at 21 months’ pay for a voluntary redundancy and 12 months for a compulsory redundancy. It said that 90 per cent of the union’s 80,000 members rejected the change in a ballot result ....
Friday November 26, 2010 at 2:06pm
According to the Guardian, public managers face "an almost unprecedented level of criticism not just of their organisations but of their own strategies to deal with the cuts. The government's commitment to transparency, and the publishing of its accounts last week, leaves public managers facing a wave of attacks over everything from the growing bill for employing temporary staff – a fairly straightforward result of any recruitment freeze – to the cost of work-related injur....
Wednesday November 24, 2010 at 11:23am
The CIPD have just produced some guidance on performance management where they give the following key recommendations on performance management:
- Communicate clear and measurable standards - Monitor performance - Give feedback for early correction - Investigate fully and create a performance improvement plan - Provide sufficient time to improve and escalate to a formal process if standards are not met - Dismiss the employee if they cannot meet the standard required and no further adjustments c....
Monday October 25, 2010 at 7:38am
A report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, shows that a third of all employers reporting an increase in stress-related absence. More than a third noted an increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression – a big rise on last year’s survey when one-fifth reported an increase. But only one-fifth of organisations had increased their focus on employee well-being and health promotion, suggesting more could be done. The survey found t....
Saturday October 23, 2010 at 7:34am
Whether we wish to face up to it or not, many organisations in the public and private sector are in crisis as their rasisin etre is missing.
Organisations need an ethical framework, but the vast majority are unbothered.
Within this context, the paper below was published this month and presented in a speech to the Chairmen and CEOs of the UK FTSE350 corporations by Ian Powell, the PwC UK Chairman.http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/issues/trust.html
A key person involved in the paper....
Thursday October 21, 2010 at 10:24am
In my mediation training seminars, there is a very strong emphasis on the importance of soft skills in managing disputes conflict.
Where managers fall short is often not what they say which can often be totally justified, but rather how they say it.
When human resource staff become mediators as such they need to avoid the perception of pre-judging.
With this in mind, consider Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's analysis on George Osborne's speech yesterday announcing the CSR....
Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 10:36am
Many of us have heard about Sir Philip Green's report into the waste in the public sector, but what has not been covered are the wasted legal costs in Employment Tribunal which public sector bodies have to deal with.
For example this has been reported in the Driffield Times.
"The level of animosity felt by some injured or sick officers towards their seniors was highlighted at an employment tribunal in Newcastle brought by 44-year-old Pc Alison Doyle against Northumbria Police. She was on ....
Tuesday October 12, 2010 at 9:50am
The Telegraph writes that all 16,000 employees of Everything Everywhere, the mobile phone company created by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, were told last month whether or not their jobs were safe at mass meetings across the country. Up to 1,200 middle managers and back office staff who could lose their jobs by the end of the Christmas holidays were shown a red light and told they were "at risk". Other staff saw the light go yellow, which meant they must re-apply for their existing....
Sunday October 10, 2010 at 7:08am
Beyond all of the recent headlines in the public sector, it is worth both government and trade unions thinking about some hard facts. Public sector productivity growth is behind behind productivity growth in the private sector. In short, we are paying a lot more but the extra money is buying less.
Efficiency varies widely between providers. The public sector is not one monolith. Performance varies.
Performance management has in most cases been undermined by its lack ....
Tuesday October 5, 2010 at 3:29pm
The new Equality Act is going to mean that employers will no longer be able to ask job candidates about their health and pay secrecy clauses hiding differences between what men and women earn have been scrapped.
The Act came into effect on 1 October. The main changes are making pay secrecy 'gagging' clauses unenforceable, putting restrictions on employers asking job applicants questions about disability or health, making employers responsible for protecting their staff from harassment by c....
Friday October 1, 2010 at 1:16pm
According to a recent survey, the oldest people in society will be hit hardest by cuts in public spending – losing almost a sixth of their household income by 2014.A study by Age UK shows that the average household with someone over 75 will lose £2,200 worth of public services a year by 2014, which represents about 14% of their household income. Even worse the poorest of the over-75s will lose a third of their income. The findings, said the charity, show that old people will suffer t....
Tuesday September 28, 2010 at 2:30pm
As people planning the next stages in our firms' business development, we should be trying to anticipate what is going to happen next in the economy.
One columnist that I do pay attention to is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph. As he writes
"We live in an amazing world. Everybody has big budget deficits and big easy money but somehow the world as a whole cannot fully employ itself,” said former Fed chair Paul Volcker in Chris Whalen’s new book Inflated: How M....
Friday September 24, 2010 at 6:20pm
The CIPD has produced a good to dealing successfully with stress in the workplace. It contains legal analysis and can be downloaded here.
Justin Patten, Solicitor....
Monday September 20, 2010 at 12:45pm
In this era of austerity, it is reported by Panorma that more than 9,000 workers in the public sector earn more than David Cameron, who cut the prime minister's salary to £142,500 when he took office in May.As the Guardian reveal today, the survey, carried out by Panorama in conjunction with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, is based on responses to more than 2,400 freedom of information requests submitted since February this year. The survey found: • The NHS has the highest num....
Wednesday September 15, 2010 at 2:29pm
Some of the instructions which we are asked to deal with involve large organisations dealing with stressed employees who are not at work, or have erratic work hours.
The advantages of mediation in this scenario is as follows:
1 Typically there is a breakdown in the relationship and there is a lack of confidence between the parties. The mediator can enable the parties to understand precisely what is going on.
2 The employee is being unproductive; The mediator can help the employee c....
Thursday August 26, 2010 at 3:11pm
Redundancy Advice Service -Legal Advice and Support Services for SMEs
Making staff redundant is never easy, get it wrong however and it could cost your business significant sums, in management time and compensation payouts.
Many businesses only take advice when their redundancy programme goes wrong or when an employee disputes the grounds under which they are being made redundant.
Taking specialist legal advice and getting support with the redundancy process means you can avoid costl....
Wednesday August 25, 2010 at 9:17am
This is a dated article on Personnel Today, but illustrates some of the pressures and the benefits of implementing an internal mediation scheme. It is worth looking at again to see some of the benefits of mediating.
Justin Patten, Solicitor....
Sunday August 22, 2010 at 6:42pm
New research for the Observer suggests large companies are at last making an effort to understand their employees and 'engage' with them.
Large companies claim that they are doing more than ever before to listen to their staff and improve relationships. "Employee engagement" – the jargon for firms' efforts to communicate and build good relations with their workforces – is a key topic in management circles.
Since 2006, companies have had a legal duty to "have regard t....
Friday August 20, 2010 at 9:20am
Employment lawyers and human resource consultants in their quest for raised profile like to talk about the new legislation and how this is going to change the way we work. All well and good.
One of the issues which I come across in my capacity as employment lawyer and mediator is the pre-determined sacking.
Essentially an organisation embarks the dismissal of someone, frequently though not exclusively by means of redundancy.
It is done via the guise of legal compliance, but the sad fact is th....
Tuesday August 17, 2010 at 6:41pm
Having worked fairly significantly with the public sector as a mediator, a lawyer and a trainer it seems increasingly clear to me that despite the best intentions, management is just simply not equipped to deal with the forthcoming cull.
No matter how you dress this up , the public sector will be facing real change and there will be blood on the streets.
Against such a background, where do we get our inspiration? What do we do? Is this only role of the HR advisor/Head of Department mitigatio....
Tuesday August 17, 2010 at 8:39am
Charles Wynn-Evans has produced a good piece for the CIPD(12th August edition of People Management) about the importance of appopriate severence terms when dealiong with the departure of senior executives.
From my perspective whether you are the employer attempting to fire someone, or the employee clinging to job or trying to negotiate, law is just one dynamic of the discusssion. In other words, the contract wording and the legal intrepretation of conduct is just one factor.
What are the ....
Monday August 16, 2010 at 2:01pm
The Law Society has released a practice note for solicitors giving them guidance on how to deal with mediation before and during the process.
The note should be commended as it is written in plain English, covers issues of use to lawyers and gives some guidance.
However there are concerns which shows the lack of knowledge of mediation within employment lawyers.
As the note points out only a number of cases will come into the catchment area of judicial mediation namely
A full ....
Monday August 16, 2010 at 8:13am
Last week the 2010 FTSE 100 Directors’ Remuneration report from Hewitt New Bridge Street was published and it shows that bonuses have increased. The annual report shows the median total remuneration for the highest paid director in the FTSE 100 is just under £3 million, compared to £2.5 million last year. Bonuses earned for the highest paid directors in 2009/10 were around 120% of salary, compared to around 90% last year, or around 75% of the maximum potential, 60% last y....
Sunday August 15, 2010 at 7:52pm
Whilst there are many reasons to take legal action, there is always a flip side.
By way of example, according to Acas each case costs the employer an average of £2,000 just to complete the tribunal form, and up to £4,210 for advice and representation after the claim has been submitted.
The pain just does not hit companies.
According to 2008 SETA reports, 36% of claimants said they suffered stress or depression, or that they had found the case emotionally drain....
Monday August 9, 2010 at 8:43am
Over the weekend, the Telegraph writes
"Mr Hurd, chairman and chief executive of the world's largest personal computer manufacturer since April 2005, agreed to step down with immediate effect after he was found to have violated the company's own business conduct standards. The HP probe was sparked following allegations from a former contractor, with whom Mr Hurd admitted he had a "close personal relationship". The company also said that Mr Hurd submitted false expense reports in....
Friday August 6, 2010 at 7:39am
One of the aspects of mediation is the fact that it is very competitive and in fact that there it is very difficult to obtain work.
One of the best pieces on the subject was presented and written by Matthew Rushton, editor of the Mediator Magazine.
"It would be hard to imagine that anyone involved in contentious work since the Woolf Reforms has not heard of mediation. Lord Woolf himself is now a mediator, among other things. Cherie Blair, likewise, is also a med....
Wednesday August 4, 2010 at 3:04pm
Employees will soon be able to choose when they stop working under new government proposals to scrap compulsory retirement. From April next year, the “default retirement age” – which allows employers to force workers to retire at 65 – will be phased out over a six-month period. After the credit crunch, some workers were forced to delay their retirement as a 40 per cent fall in stock markets in the 12 months after October 2007 wiped billions off the value of pension f....
Monday July 5, 2010 at 10:10am
According to Personnel Today, Nottinghamshire County Council is considering outsourcing services to the private sector. The council is to ask private companies how they would run services such as catering and highways, and at what cost, Council spokesman Tim Malynn said the review could help towards planned savings of £120m over the next four years. He added: "Like every other council in the country, we are facing financial pressures and we must seriously look at who is best pla....
Friday July 2, 2010 at 11:08am
Recently, I read a thoughtful paper written by Rosalyn Rahme CEO of Goldjobs, which is the appointments portal for salaries commanding £100,000 / €140,000 and above. She writes:
"Generation Y (defined as being born mid 70’s to early 90’s). As many senior executives are left standing open mouthed when the 10th mid management employee who has spent the last year working 9-5, ignoring the financial and business crisis of the past 12 months asks about the leve....
Monday June 21, 2010 at 2:27pm
Doubts have been raised over the implementation date of The Equality Act 2010 after the Government Equalities Office (GEO) removed the October 2010 date for implementation from its website. The Equality Act received Royal Assent on 8 April and the bulk of the legislation was due to be implemented in October. But the GEO's website no longer displays that date, and a fact sheet on the Act just states: "The provisions in the Equality Act will come into force at different times to allow time fo....
Wednesday June 9, 2010 at 4:09pm
A recent CBI Survey has shown that the rate of employee absence has fallen recently to the lowest levels since 1987. Employees still however take on average 6.4 days off through illness each year, accounting for 180 million sick days in total. The costs to companies and organisations are estimated at a staggering £16.8bn. It does make you wonder with the World Cup looming whether absences might start to increase if England progress in the competition and people start skipping work to watch....
Thursday May 20, 2010 at 7:40am
An interesting piece in the Daily Mail.
A male lawyer was wrongfully sacked because his bosses feared they would be sued if they fired his female colleague while she was on maternity leave.
In a rare instance of a man claiming sex discrimination, John de Belin won £123,000 in damages after one of Britain's biggest law firms 'deprived him of his livelihood'.
Mr de Belin, 45, was one of two associates facing redundancy from Eversheds' property division in Leeds. The other was Angel....
Sunday May 2, 2010 at 7:24am
An interesting piece on a relationship counsellor's bid to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples has been turned down by the High Court. Gary McFarlane, 48, from Bristol, was sacked by Relate Avon in 2008. He claimed the service had refused to accommodate his Christian beliefs. Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified. He said it was irrational and "also divisive, capricious and a....
Wednesday April 14, 2010 at 9:54am
The Guardian today gives a wide level of coverage to a soldier disciplined by the army after missing a parade to look after her daughter is set to receive damages after winning an employment tribunal claim.Tilern DeBique, 28, said she was forced to leave her job because she was unable to organise childcare. The former corporal, who was recruited on the Caribbean island of St Vincent, won a claim of sexual discrimination following a hearing at the central London employment tribunal yest....
Tuesday April 13, 2010 at 4:06pm
An interesting article has emerged in the Daily Telegraph.
Businesses could face 370,000 extra employment tribunals over the next three years, costing about £2.6bn. Research by law firm Dickinson Dees has found that if employment laws continue to be enacted at the present rate, the number of tribunals will rise by 46% over the next three years.James Wilders, an employment partner at Dickinson Dees, said: "Since 1998 there has been an almost inexorable rise in the number of employment....
Monday March 22, 2010 at 10:10am
Roger Steare who I know, have worked with, respect and I have blogged about is an expert on Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, Leadership and Culture.
As his website reveals, he has recently made a significant contribution to the CNBC Future of Finance film series, alongside Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Economics Laureate, Sir David Walker and Harvey Pitt, the former SEC Chairman. Roger acts as an adviser, consultant and trainer to major corporations such as BP, HSBC and PWC; and works....
Friday February 26, 2010 at 4:31pm
An interesting article in the Times on the problems of overtime in the workplace.
"We’ve had extreme fishing, extreme skiing and even extreme ironing. Now, however, the TUC has found that almost a million workers are spending hours every week on an activity that may give them no pleasure and certainly no reward — extreme overtime. More than five million professionals and managers in both the public and private sectors are working an average of seven hours a week without extra p....
Thursday February 25, 2010 at 1:49pm
The recent publication of Observer journalist, Andrew Rawnsley’s book The End of the Party has brought much interest in the conduct of Gordon Brown and others, including the National Bullying Helpline and its Chief Executive, Christine Pratt, and the journalist, Andrew Rawnsley.
It is time to step back.
We are close to a general election, so the truth is not necessarily a priority for any of the parties.
First of all the allegations. What are they?
Gordon’s Brown abusive....
Wednesday February 17, 2010 at 12:35pm
Lawyers acting on behalf of employee clients do not like alleging Constructive Dismissal but sometimes you have to do it.
The reason why we do not like doing it is because the onus is on the employee to prove the dismissal.
The law is if the employer is in fundmental breach of his obligations under the contract then the employee has the right to accept the breach by resigning and then claiming constructive dismissal.
The biggest difficulty for the employee is to establish that the b....
Monday February 15, 2010 at 2:01pm
This is well reported news but olne in four employers is planning to make redundancies in the first three months of 2010, a survey has revealed. Employers plan to cut an average of 6.2% of their workforce, according to the poll of 700 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). That is up 2.4% compared with the previous quarter, in which workforces were cut by an average of 3.8%. This signals the start of a public sector recession that will see deep cuts in public e....
Wednesday February 10, 2010 at 10:20am
An interesting article on the Personnel Today website about homophobia.
Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation may be against the law, but many 'out' employees continue to experience homophobia in the workplace. Sophie Hudson investigates.
Former teacher Sue Sanders spent much of 1989 vigorously campaigning on television against Section 28, the law banning councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality. Little did she know it would result in her boss sidi....
Monday February 1, 2010 at 5:08pm
Increasingly Human Law Mediation is dealing with issues relating to elderly workers both in an employment law and a mediation capacity.
My experience of conflict or a dispute is there are some fundamental dymanics which are the same.
You have 2 or more different parties and there is some kind of problem e.g either the Employee has done something wrong or the Employer is just trying to ensure the business makes money and it wants to sack or discipline a member of staff.
You....
Thursday January 28, 2010 at 11:54am
There is an interesting employment law case which has obtained a great deal of interest in the human resources and legal press.
Public sector employees may have the right to bring a lawyer to all disciplinary hearings should their dismissal prevent them from working in their profession in future. A Court of Appeal decision published last week has opened up the issue as to whether employees have the right to legal representation at internal disciplinary hearings. The case involved a music a....
Tuesday January 19, 2010 at 3:31pm
Despite the increased interest of mediation within employment lawyers, human resource professionals and their clients, there is still resistance to the use of mediation.
A lot of this can be underpinned by ignorance or lack of experience in use of mediation. One leading employment lawyer told me that he would like to refer matters to mediation but the clients are very resistant.
In addition, there is still a lack of legal incentive to use mediation. The Gibbons Review does represent ....
Sunday January 17, 2010 at 9:37pm
There have been some intriguing reports in the PR/Media press recently with Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud delivering a public attack on Fox News output and in particular,one of Murdoch's key Fox employees, Roger Ailes.
Freud said that he was "shamed and sickened" by Fox's journalistic standards and he targeted Ailes in particular.
Roger Ailes is the closest and one of Murdoch's key employees; According to the Guardian on Saturday he earned even more m....
Friday January 15, 2010 at 1:45pm
One third of UK employees say they have not felt appreciated by their employer during the recession and would leave for another job if they could, according to a poll of around 950 workers commissioned by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Of those respondents who said their employer had shown appreciation for them in the downturn, 41% said they had no plans to leave as a consequence of this loyalty while just 23% said they would consider leaving regardless. The findings illustrate the huge potentia....
Tuesday January 12, 2010 at 11:24am
Despite the absence of fanfare, Employment Judicial Mediation does sometimes become an issue for the employment lawyer or human resources professional.
It is now on potential offer in every single Employment Tribunal.
The scheme was piloted in Newcastle, Birmingham and London Central during 2006-07. It was introduced throughout England and Wales in January 2009 and was formally launched in Scotland in June 2009.
To recap it can be offered to the disputing parties in an ....
Monday January 11, 2010 at 11:33am
The British Airways/Unite dispute rumbles on with Unite seeking a new ballot which will start on 22nd January.
At this point, it is the trade union on the defensive with its failed attempt to strike over the Christmas period and the fact that it is looking just plain stupid and greedy in the current economic environment.
When I mediate any dispute one of the elements which can be present is the inherent need of one or both of the parties for the dispute to continue.
W....
Saturday January 9, 2010 at 11:36am
So according to press reports today, we read that Baroness Greenfield is going to sue the Royal Institution for sexual discrimination.
Do not necessarily believe what you are reading as it appears both the employer and the employee are in a briefing war.
In addition, it appears that Baroness Greenfield was only served with redundancy papers(initial consultation?) the day before, the Friday, and has only just instructed lawyers then and has made an immediate decision to sue for sexua....
Wednesday January 6, 2010 at 1:41pm
There has been some interesting articles in the National Press on the subject of bullying in the clergy and the involvement of the union, Unite. The Times had a good piece yesterday.
A bishop is among the 150 clergy and ministers who have sought protection with the trade union Unite from what it describes as a culture of bullying in the established Church. Most of those who have sought help are in the Church of England but Roman Catholic priests, rabbis and imams have also joined Unite, ac....
Thursday November 26, 2009 at 12:41pm
If you would like an illustration of the benefits of mediation, consider this article which refers to bullying in the Guardian.
Essentially, Moira Cameron was the first female yeoman warder in the 1,000-year history of the Tower of London, and history was made again when two male yeomen accused of a sustained campaign of bullying against her were sacked. A 56-year-old man has also received a police caution under the Communications Act 2003 for defacing Cameron's Wikipedia entry, whic....
Monday November 9, 2009 at 8:15am
As has been recently reported, a senior manager who has alleged he was unfairly dismissed on the basis of his views on climate change can take his employer to a tribunal, an employment appeal judge has ruled. Tim Nicholson, head of sustainability at residential landlord group Grainger, said his environmental beliefs were the reason behind a decision to make him redundant in 2008, because his views had strained relations with senior staff. Nicholson asserted his views on climate change amoun....
Monday October 19, 2009 at 6:37am
The Royal Mail Dispute rumbles on with Trade Unions and management heading towards what seems to be mutual destruction.
Against this background, how could I successfully mediate this matter?
What are the key variables which would give a possibility of a settlement being reached? In particular, what are the variables that I would consider?
Focus on the Parties. One of the most neglected ways to reach a settlement is to focus on which parties to attend the mediation. It goe....
Saturday October 17, 2009 at 10:01am
With the two day Royal Mail strike looming and Mr Hayes, the leader of the Communication Workers Union, now receiving comparisons to Arthur Scargill, it may be a useful time to take a step back and give this matter more consideration.
In particular the parties are now receiving pressure to refer this martter to binding arbitration.
Now is a good opportunity to consider what is arbitration and how it differs to mediation.
Arbitration is the imposition of a....
Friday October 16, 2009 at 4:29pm
As Personnel Today points out the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has accused Royal Mail management of bullying and harassing postal workers as the war of words ahead of next week's strikes heats up. In a letter to Royal Mail chief Mark Higson, CWU leader Dave Ward claimed "unagreed HR procedures" were being used in an attempt to bully employees into agreeing to changes to working practices. The CWU said these referred to the firm ignoring pre-determined steps that any employee must ....
Thursday October 15, 2009 at 3:10pm
According to the Law Society Gazette, lawyers are witnessing a huge surge in unfair dismissal claims which is leading them to expand their employment teams but is also placing a severe strain on the tribunal system. Figures released by the Tribunals Service last week showed that unfair dismissal claims rose 29% to 52,711 in the year to March 2009. Cases relating to redundancy pay rose 48% to 10,839, while claims for failure to inform and consult over redundancy saw a high 154% increase....
Monday October 5, 2009 at 8:40am
Information has recently emerged on the number of Employment Tribunal claims being lodged.
As usual there is good and bad news.
The good news is the number of claims accepted by employment tribunals has fallen by a fifth. Employment tribunals accepted 151,000 claims in 2008-09, a decrease of 20% on the 2007-08 figure, latest figures by the Tribunals Service have shown. Multiple claims accepted for 2008-09 fell by 13% on the previous year, but this figure excluded the number of airline employee....
Wednesday September 16, 2009 at 2:01pm
Some interesting news has emerged within the last week in the Law Society Gazette and the Times.
Divorcing and separating couples would be compelled to consider mediation before going to court, under plans being drawn up by ministers. At present only couples funded by legal aid must consider mediation as a method of sorting out arrangements over children and finances. An interesting objectio from Baroness Deech, the Gresham Professor of Law who this week launches a series of lectures calli....
Friday September 4, 2009 at 7:16am
It is always important to stay up to date on the law and a good event worth attending is on Monday, 7th September 2009 and run by CPD for Webinars.
The beauty of webinars is that you can stay in the office(or home) and do not have to get out and about, you can ask the speaker questions and get to see the event again and again.
As one testimonial says "After a hard day at the office, the last thing I want to do is travel to a barristers' chambers....
Tuesday September 1, 2009 at 8:41am
This is just to let you know that I will be speaking on behalf of MBL Seminars and have a series of dates coming up.
The era of mediation has arrived and lawyers need to have an understanding of these issues. Main points covered:
The different forms of ADR - Conciliation, Arbitration, Mediation
How mediation fits into the ADR arena and why it’s different from conciliation and arbitration
What are the trends underpinning the growth of mediation
What happens at a mediation....
Tuesday August 25, 2009 at 1:53pm
An interesting article in the Guardian about the impact of the recession on pregnant women in the workplace.
"Rosalind Bragg, director of charity Maternity Action, says: "We have seen an increase in the number of women being chosen for redundancy because they are pregnant, which is unlawful. We are very concerned that some unscrupulous employers are using the recession as an excuse to unfairly target pregnant women and women on maternity leave." She adds that women are reporting ....
Tuesday August 18, 2009 at 2:35pm
There is an excellent article written by Alex Locke for the ELA Briefing on the issue of employment judicial mediation.
We now learn via Alex the following.
There are very few employment judges trained as mediators. In one of the London regions only two judges have been trained.
There appears to be inadequte facitiies such as more than 1 room available.
There is a lack of guidance given to parties which prohibits the judges from giving a steer to the parties.
Oh dear.
First of all....
Saturday August 8, 2009 at 7:39am
With some rather positive headlines about the economy such as risining stockmarket, house prices and services activity there are some that think the worst is behind us and we can look forward to a new brighter era.
Sorry to be depressing but that it is not my view.
There is still too much debt in the economy and for individulas, too much emphasis on high house prices, the Bank of England has just had to do more Quantatitive Easing and the redundancies have not worked....
Wednesday July 22, 2009 at 10:43am
With not much fanfare the pilot of Judicial Mediation rolls out from London, Birmingham and Newcastle Tribunals and onto the whole Tribunal circuit.
Welcome as this may be this is hardly going to lead to a widescale use of mediation in employment disputes. Indeed judicial mediation could be counter-productive.
Some reasons why judicial mediation will not really change much in the employment scheme are:
1 The fact that mediations will be geared towards discrimination c....
Thursday July 16, 2009 at 10:01am
I have just finished doing a mediation session for lawyers for MBL Seminars in London at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
As I often do in this session, we had a role play where one person acts as mediator and we see how the lawyers will get to grips with the scenario.
What was quite revealing is how counter-intutive the mediation process is to the lawyers namely the best approach to take is to be open with the mediator but obviously making it quite clear what you would a....
Saturday July 4, 2009 at 7:30am
So according to the Telegraph, BT with 106,000 staff - is trying to save money as it struggles to cope with the impact of the recession. BT has proposed that employees take up to a year off, in return for taking a 75 per cent pay cut. To encourage as many workers to take up of the offer, the company will pay their reduced salary as an upfront cash payment. Parents are also being offered the opportunity to work only in school term times, so they can spend the summer holidays with their ....
Thursday July 2, 2009 at 10:09pm
I am a lawyer(solicitor) mediator.
In my experience many lawyers(And I count myself in this domain) who subsequently qualify as a mediator struggle initally with the techniques of being a mediator.
One concept which is difficult is the need to empathise with both(or maybe more) disputing parties. One client can be demanding enough but more than one......it can be pretty tough.
Another difficulty which some lawyers experience is that of eye contact. Us lawyers love our writing p....
Friday June 26, 2009 at 9:18am
As a lawyer, mediator and trainer I get to see lots of disputes.
In a tough employmnet climate that is goiing to continue for many.
What I realise more and more is that disputes are increasingly about the parties which are engaed in. Many individuals are enagaed in disputes which they will have again albeit a more subtle level in different spheres of their lives.
Therefore at least part the problem is not out there but within.
The solution is ....
Wednesday June 17, 2009 at 12:16pm
Alex Locke, editor of the ELA Brief refers to the rolling out of judicial mediation to all Employment Tribunals in the latest ELA Briefing magazine.
Apparently certain cases wil be identified as suitable for mediation.
These are discrimination cases, ones that listed for over 3 days in Tribunal and ones where the person is still employed by the organisation.
All well and good.
Some observations.
1 As Alex points out, hardly anyone knows about the rolling out of jud....
Wednesday June 10, 2009 at 4:56pm
Yesterday I attended an employment seminar run by Fox Williams which was informative on topics such as Intellectual Property, Bonuses, Age Discriminaton and finally, the Acas Code.
The new Acas Code on grievances and discipline is commenably brief but as Aron Pope of the firm pointed out there are a number of uncertainties such as:
What status/weight will a tribunal give the Guide(e.g no the Code)?
What are defined as grievances?
Can employees be su....
Thursday May 28, 2009 at 2:29pm
As many of us are aware, new employment legislation has come into play with the intention of reducing the number of Tribunal claims but will it make a difference to greater use of mediation?
The new legislation came into existence on 6th April 2009.
The Employment Act 2008 and the ACAS Code have not adopted any form of compulsion for mediation in the Tribunals and the references to mediation are not positive. The only reference to mediation in the Code is in the non-bind....
Wednesday May 13, 2009 at 4:44pm
Legal and General is announcing redundancies and trying to avert legal action but it looks as though it is a losing battle.
As Reuters point outt, Insurer Legal & General is in talks with unions to make up to 560 staff redundant, a spokesman for the group said Tuesday, marking the latest in a wave of job cuts to hit the financial sector. The L&G spokesman said the redundancy target included 300 full-time positions, with temporary contracts accounting for the remainder. The Unite tr....
Wednesday April 22, 2009 at 3:07pm
My firm deals with quite a few Compromise Agreements and redundancy scenarios at the moment.
There is interesting news from the Budget.
Alastair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has announced that the maximum of a week's pay for statutory redundancy payment purposes will increase from £350 to £380. Accordingly, the maximum statutory redundancy payment will rise from £10,500 to £11,400. However:- Do not jump with fear straight away, the Chancellor was....
Tuesday April 21, 2009 at 4:51pm
Evaluate One of the key skills which an employment lawyer or mediator can bring to the table is the ability to effectively evaluate any employment dispute. Knowledge of law will help an employer to know the possible value of any employment claim and what is involved. From this one can start to consider what the offer should be and when to walk away. This involves identifying all plausible alternatives you may pursue if you fail to reach an agreement and how things will work out with the employee....
Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 10:10am
Congratulations to the CIPD who have introduced some useful guidance on dealing with the new disciplinary and grievance procedures.
Whlist we are getting rid of the old dreaded legislation, the new rules make no legal obligation to mediate. The result being that the Gibbons Review which was published 2 years ago will lead to little upsurge in mediation.
Frankly I do remain optimistic that long term there will be growth in mediation within the employment sphere but it ....
Saturday April 4, 2009 at 8:36am
As I point out in my recent enewsflash there are worrying statistics published just a few weeks ago which suggest the risks of punitive employment tribunal claims are getting greater for employers. Six months later than expected the latest statistics published by the Employment Tribunals Service show a steep increase in the number of employment claims being upheld and a corresponding drop in the numbers being turned down. In the latest figures (for 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008) 189,3....
Wednesday March 11, 2009 at 4:36pm
It is all go in the age discrimination arena and the issue is going to run and run.
As the Law Society Gazette reports "the first tribunal hearing to deal ‘head on’ with bars to employment based on date of birth has ruled that the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) acted unlawfully in rejecting candidates over 35. This follows the Heyday case which has been all over the press recently and shows that the issue of age discrimination has a while to run just yet with the ECJ....
Sunday March 1, 2009 at 5:46pm
One of the best economic columnists writes for the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. His latest lucid piece highlights the global and relatively early nature of the recession.
As he writes. "Factory output is collapsing at the fastest pace everywhere. The figures for the most recent month available are, year-on-year: Taiwan (-43pc), Ukraine (-34pc), Japan (-30pc), Singapore (-29pc), Hungary (-23pc), Sweden (-20pc), Korea (-19pc), Turkey (-18pc), Russia (-16pc), Spa....
Tuesday February 10, 2009 at 3:06pm
As Real Business highlights:
Some small business owners are being hit with lawsuits because they’ve failed to follow the correct statutory procedures when it comes to making employees redundant. Small business insurer Hiscox says there has been a threefold rise in insurance claims during the last quarter from SME employers being sued by former workers for unfair dismissal. The firm says employers are leaving themselves exposed to significant claims. According to Hiscox, the top three clai....