Employers need to be more tolerant of personal relationships in the workplace, new research suggests.

The study conducted by the University of Westminster showed that a lack of support for workplace relationships can leave workers feeling depressed and isolated if the relationship breaks down.

Senior psychology lecturer at the university Chantal Gautier examined the experiences of employees from a range of working environments and concluded that banning office affairs was counterproductive.

“It’s a perfect playground for people to meet. Rather than use the traditional methods like dismissal or transfer, organisations need to face up to the reality that these things are going to happen and when they do they should ask, ‘how are we going to deal with this in our organisation?’

“Ultimately, we are creating these environments unknowingly and we need to decide how to move forward, especially when it’s becoming more common.”

Carolyn Jones, director of the Institute for Employment Rights also called for firms to be more flexible regarding office romances: “My feeling is that the workplace has changed. People are spending more and more time at work and the work-life division is breaking down,” she said.

TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: “On the other side of the Atlantic, love contracts forbidding relationships at work are commonplace. Thankfully, most employers here have not rushed to ban office affairs.

“Employers should sit down with staff to draw up guidelines outlining what is and is not acceptable. This should mean that love affairs around the water cooler don’t embarrass uninvolved colleagues.”

www.sundayherald.com, January 9, 2006

British Airways has decided not to follow the lead of Rentokil Initial and close its final salary pension scheme to existing members, despite an estimated £1.4 billion deficit.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, ruled out closure. “It does not feel like the right solution for us,” he said.

BA will put initial proposals for tackling the deficit to employees and pension fund trustees in February 2006. Options include forcing staff to increase their contributions, moving to an average salary arrangement and increasing retirement ages.

Scottish Power has also taken steps to protect its final salary pension scheme, announcing that it will close to new members. This will increase by 40 per cent the amount which thousands of existing employees have to contribute to their pension schemes. The company is also raising its pension age from 63 to 65. Staff who have been with the company since before privatisation will be protected.

Scottish Power has a final salary deficit of about £150 million which is relatively small for a company of its size.

Herald and Independent January 11, 2006

Six female employees of the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein have filed a £793m sexual discrimination lawsuit, believed to be the largest of its kind, claiming unfair and abusive treatment.

The women claim that females are denied top jobs at Dresdner’s London and New York offices, are paid less than their male colleagues and are forced to work in a hostile environment in which men boast of visits to strip clubs, bring prostitutes into the office and make sexual remarks to female
co-workers.

The suit said: “Although we live in 2006, the ‘glass ceiling’ is alive and well at this German investment bank, where women are treated as second-class citizens.”

The Dresdner suit notes that only 1 per cent of women in the capital markets division are managing directors, compared with 15 per cent of men. It says that the absence of women from senior positions contributes to a “pervasive discriminatory culture”.

The complainants document a number of incidents in which they were subjected to vulgar remarks, excluded from company functions to allow male staff to go on to strip clubs, and told that female juniors were hired to serve as “eye candy”.

Dresdner said that it will defend itself against the suit, and added that the firm “fully complies with all applicable employment-related laws and is confident that any claims to the contrary are without merit”.

Guardian January 10, 2006

A Vietnamese woman who was told by an employment tribunal chairman that her skin “was as white as the English” was denied a fair hearing, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has ruled.

Anita Ho was employed for 18 months as an assistant payroll manager with Crystal Services, a firm providing cleaning, guarding and pest control services.

She took the company to an employment tribunal at Stratford, unsuccessfully claiming unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation.

The tribunal chairman asked Ms Ho why she was claiming to be non-white, as her skin was “as white as the English”.

Miss Ho told the EAT: “I felt that the chairman was mocking my appearance and perhaps my make-up was too white so that I looked like a clown or geisha girl.

“I felt I was undermined and almost mocked for bringing my complaint.”

The EAT ruled that Miss Ho’s case should be heard before a new panel as there had been a “perception of bias” in the original hearing.

Daily Telegraph January 10, 2006

Large, well-managed multi-national firms provide a better work-life balance for their workers, according to a study by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP).

The study found that successful management could be achieved by allowing staff to “work smarter not harder”, providing good people management through mentoring, rewarding and retaining key staff and providing training opportunities.

Firms with a better work-life balance were more likely to have a significantly higher share of women in management relative to non-management, the study found.

Dr Nick Bloom, co-author of the report, said: “Employees in larger, more globalised firms seem to be much better off in terms of their working lives than those in smaller, more national firms.”

Employers also benefit from good and fair work-life balance according to the study, which found that such arrangements did not have a negative effect on productivity.

BBC News January 10, 2006

HM Revenue and Customs is launching a crackdown on small business employers suspected of not paying the minimum wage.

Revenue officials will be conducting a region-by-region search for suspected pay cheats and a department spokesman has confirmed that some sectors of the industry will be subject to particular scrutiny.

“The Revenue’s main focus for 2006 is on cash-based businesses, including service industries such as restaurants, with additional attention paid to homeworkers. Investigations may also focus on female workers, still the lowest-paid in society today,” the spokesman said.

Employment Relations Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: “The majority of UK employers know that decent wages mean a well-motivated workforce, which boosts competitiveness and performance. However a small number of companies still refuse to pay their staff the minimum wage. These employers should be warned that the DTI and HM Revenue & Customs take this very seriously.

”In 2006 we will select another sector for targeted enforcement and start the first batch of criminal prosecutions against employers who fail to pay their workers what they are legally entitled to.”

The minimum wage is currently £5.05 per hour for those aged 22 and over and is due to increase to £5.35 in October 2006.

The Revenue’s minimum wage helpline received over 2,000 allegations of underpayment in 2005.

www.hmrc.gov.uk, January 9, 2005

Over four million UK employees performed unpaid overtime in 2005, according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), but employers are beginning to take action to reverse this trend.

Some 4,759,000 employees worked extra hours without pay last year, compared with 4,841,275 in 2004 and 5,217,000 in 2003.

On average, employees worked an additional seven hours and 24 minutes per week - equating to a full day’s work.

Londoners did the most unpaid overtime at 8.2 hours a week. Workers in Wales worked an additional 7.8 hours unpaid.

The long-hours culture is a prevalent feature in the largest firms with over 500 workers. Those in firms with fewer than 25 staff were the least likely to work unpaid.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said that employers were beginning to realise that the long-hours culture was not “something to celebrate”.

“Millions are still putting in up to an extra day a week for free but there are now some welcome signs that some employers are beginning to realise endless hours of unpaid overtime are often a sign of an inefficient workplace.

“We don’t want to turn into a nation of clock-watchers – most people enjoy their jobs and don’t mind putting in extra effort when there’s a rush or an emergency – but that easily turns into the long hours culture of extra hours every week. In smart workplaces people work fewer hours.”

The TUC has made February 24 its third annual Work Your Proper Hours Day when employees are encouraged to take a proper lunch break and leave work on time.

Telegraph January 5, 2006

Employers are within their rights to discriminate against smokers, an employment specialist argues.

Referring to the case of Sophie Blinman, who was dismissed on her first day at work after her boss discovered that she smoked, Birmingham employment partner Jane Byford said there was little recourse in law for Miss Blinman.

“Unfortunately for Miss Blinman, she really has no way of appealing against this decision,” said Miss Byford.

“Due to her short time with the business, she is not entitled to bring a claim for unfair dismissal and she would not be entitled to compensation for failure to give statutory notice.

“One avenue of recourse may be to challenge the employer’s actions on the grounds of breach of human rights, in particular the right of respect for private life.”

“This might be limited, not only because it was against a private sector employer, but also because the businesses also had a duty to act to protect the health of other employees.

“Therefore, regardless of Ms Blinmam’s offer to not smoke inside the workplace, there may be an argument that smoke on clothing could trigger respiratory problems in others,” she added.

www.icbirmingham.co.uk, January 11, 2006

The average gross hourly pay for full-time and part-time workers in the UK is £12.50, according to analysis of official data by the GMB union.

The analysis shows that in Wales, the North East, Northern Ireland and in 87 cities, boroughs and unitary authorities, the average gross hourly pay is 89 per cent or below the average of £12.50.

In the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, the South West, West Midlands, North West and Scotland and in 38 cities and boroughs the average pay is between 90 and 95 per cent of the UK average per hour.

In Eastern England and the South East and in 34 cities and boroughs, the average is between 96 and 105 per cent of the UK average per hour. In London and in 45 cities and boroughs, average hourly pay is 106 or above the average of £12.50 per hour.

Main cities with the highest pay above the average hourly rate are:

• Greater London £17.30
• Reading £15.12
• Aberdeen £13.62

The three cities with the lowest pay are:

• Stoke on Trent £10.23
• Swansea £10.45
• Hull £10.51

Paul Kenny, GMB acting general secretary, said: “These average pay figures show that there is plenty of scope to raise the national minimum wage to that £6 per hour that the GMB sought last time it was reviewed. The Confederation of British Industry and the Tory Party misled the British public, deliberately in the GMB’s view, that the introduction and increases in the national minimum wage would lead to large scale job losses. In fact, employment in Great Britain since 1997 has increased by 8.3 per cent with 1.98 million new jobs.”

GMB press release January 10, 2006

Aberdeen City Council will meet on January 12 to decide some 500 equal pay claims, which could cost the local authority more than£ 5 million.

A move to call industrial action could follow soon afterwards if an acceptable deal is not reached relating to the appeal claims, mainly from cleaners and dinner ladies whose applications to be included in bonus schemes were rejected.

Tommy Campbell, a TGWU spokesperson, said that if the appeals committee upheld the council decision, it was almost certain that a strike ballot would be held. He commented: “This is the final stage now and if this doesn’t succeed the door will be open for me to ballot on industrial action, and that is what the dinner ladies in particular want to take place.”

Mr Campbell said that if the appeals, which rely on the Equal Pay Act, the Sex Discrimination Act and the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, fail, then he will be writing to the Tribunal Service to ask for claims lodged there to be brought forward.

Herald and BBC January 11, 2006

Dismissing employees places an emotional strain on those who are forced to carry out the task, a new survey suggests.

The Alexander Hughes Interim Management Survey, which questioned senior managers, revealed that 60 per cent had had to dismiss staff in the past two years without receiving any training on how to carry out this task.

Four in ten of those surveyed said that the experience of firing staff had been detrimental to their health and personal life, while one in eight said that the resulting stress had affected their performance at work.

In all, over 70 per cent of respondents to the survey predicted they would be upset if asked to lead redundancies.

The survey recommended hiring outside professionals “without emotional baggage” to carry out dismissals.

Guardian January 12, 2006