Draft regulations amending the Working Time Regulations 1998 by increasing annual leave entitlement from four weeks to 5.6 weeks are now available.

The amendments, under the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2007, will come into force on October 1, 2007.

Copies of the regulations can be found at: www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/draft/20077376.htm

A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been produced and is available at: www.dti.gov.uk/employment

Office of Public Sector Information, June 20, 2007

New measures should be introduced to reduce the length and cost to employers of employment tribunals, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has said.

In its response to a Department of Trade and Industry consultation on how best “to improve the way employment disputes are resolved”, the Confederation said that, under existing tribunal laws, workplace disputes had become “overformalised”.

“Employers have been faced with an elevation of procedure over substance and an overformalisation of disputes, and it is often unclear whether an employee has actually raised a grievance,” the CBI said. “In addition, the procedures do not distinguish between different types of dismissals, and this significantly complicates the operation of regulations.

“The CBI therefore believes it is right to repeal the regulations.”

Financial Times, June 25, 2007

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lag behind their larger counterparts when it comes to implementing flexible working practices, a new study reveals.

Research commissioned by Citrix Online showed that just 40 per cent of SMEs allowed homeworking, compared with 76 per cent of large organisations. The study also revealed that large firms are far more likely to allow workers to adjust their start and finish times and four times more likely to offer job sharing initiatives.

The three most popular flexible working options offered by UK businesses as a whole are:

• permitting a day’s holiday to be taken at short notice (78 per cent);
• flexible start and finish times (64 per cent);
• working from home (41 per cent)

The researchers warned that SMEs are likely to fall even further behind large firms in future. Over half of the larger organisations questioned said they were planning to introduce new technologies in the next three years to assist remote or home working, compared with just one in five small and medium sized employers.

www.computing.co.uk, July 6, 2007

Inclement weather is thought to be the cause of a dramatic drop in the number of sick days taken last month.

Absence management company FirstCare reported a 17 per cent drop in the number of sick days in June 2007 compared with June 2006 – the equivalent to 4 million extra days being worked.

FirstCare managing director Aaron Ross said: “We saw average absence levels for June 2007 of 0.7 days lost per employee against 0.85 for the same period last year, a reduction in absence of 17 per cent across our client base.

“This was a major boost to productivity with every employee, on average, being at work for one hour more in June 2007 compared to June 2006.

“Putting this into perspective, a typical NHS hospital trust of 2,500 staff had the equivalent of an extra 66 staff during the month of June through sickness savings alone.

“We can be sure this is down to the weather because this is the main thing that has happened over the last month. Our analysts have compared last month to June last year and the only thing that has been significantly different has been the weather, so that is what the absence figures can be attributed to.

“We also saw fewer holidays being booked at short notice last month, again attributed to the poor weather.”

Telegraph, July 6, 2007

A high profile claim under the new age regulations goes to court today where a senior City lawyer will accuse his former partners of discrimination.

The case is being brought by 54 year old Peter Bloxham, the former head of restructuring at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Mr Bloxham was one of the first people to lodge a claim under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 after they entered into force last October. Although over 1,500 claims have since been lodged, Mr Bloxham’s is the first to be brought by a senior lawyer against his former partners. His claim is understood to relate to alleged unfairness in the company’s pension arrangements.

Ronnie Fox, an expert on partnership issues described the case as “extremely unusual” as “most professional services firms go to great lengths to settle disputes privately.”

According to Employment Tribunal figures 972 age discrimination claims were made between October and the end of March. Since then the pace of claims has increased, with over 600 filed in the last three months.

Times and Financial Times, July 9, 2007

An employment tribunal ruling on the way in which back-pay is calculated in equal-pay cases has been welcomed as a victory by the public-sector union Unison.

The case centres on a group of some 1,300 female employees of Cumbria County Council. The women, who work as care assistants, home carers, kitchen assistants, cooks and night care assistants for the council, claim that male employees at the council have been awarded bonuses that they have been denied, and that, in some cases, men have received supplements to their hourly wage for working unsociable hours that their female counterparts have not.

A tribunal ruled against the council in March 2006; the council’s appeal against that ruling remains on-going, but the ruling this week in favour of the method used by Unison to calculate the back-pay due to the workers represents a triumph for the union.

“It is fundamentally unlawful that more than a thousand women have been paid at a lower rate than male employees for equivalent work at Cumbria Council, and it is the employers’ responsibility to immediately stop this injustice,” said Unison general secretary Dave Prentis. “We’re obviously delighted that the tribunal is making Cumbria stump up the back pay that is owed. But it is regrettable that the council would not settle through valid negotiation; instead we all had to invest time, money and stress in going through the legal system.

“This is a warning to other employers: stop burying your heads in the sand and start delivering on equal pay, otherwise Unison will litigate.”

Unison press release, June, 2007

A City trader who took his employer, JP Morgan Chase, to the High Court over a bonus payment has lost his case.

Daniel Ridgway joined JP Morgan straight from Oxford University and within four years he was made a vice-president at the firm. In his fourth year he made $22m for the bank and was paid a bonus of more than $1.5m.

A couple of years later, Mr Ridgway told the bank that he wanted “some time out” – although JP Morgan’s lawyers alleged in the case that he was suffering “burnout”. When he returned from a year’s sabbatical, he claimed that he was offered neither his old job nor a suitable alternative and was thus forced to leave.

Mr Ridgway’s subsequent claim focused on the bank’s decision to give him a ‘nil bonus’ for 2003, when he was on sabbatical for around nine months, and its failure to pay him certain deferred compensation in the form of stock options and restricted stock units.

In making his judgment, Mr Justice Forbes concluded that, since Mr Ridgeway had not contributed to the desk profit in 2003 – and had actually made a trading loss – the decision to withhold a bonus was “neither irrational nor perverse”.

Mr Justice Forbes said that he had “come to the firm conclusion” that both a “deferred compensation” claim and another over an unpaid bonus, together totalling more than £1m, should be rejected.

Commenting on the case, Darren Isaacs of the law firm Linklaters said: “This decision provides long-awaited recognition that banks’ bonus procedures are not something courts will rush to intervene in, except in the most extraordinary of cases.”

However, lawyers for Mr Ridgeway said that they believed the case’s lesson was that “staff who receive representations from management concerning their stock, options, or other incentives, should get written confirmation, rather than rely on verbal assurance”.

Financial Times, June 9, 2007

A City trader who claimed that a sexist work culture forced her to leave her job after she returned from maternity leave has lost her £1.35m compensation claim.

Katharina Tofeji, 38, alleged that the investment bank BNP Paribas refused to grant her a four-day working week after she had a baby.

The Austrian banker claimed that BNP Paribas had treated her unfairly in a 2004 appraisal and bonus decision after she had revealed that she was pregnant. Ms Tofeji also alleged that, after she sought a four-day working week for childcare reasons when she returned to the bank in May 2006, she suffered more discrimination and that BNP Paribas breached maternity and flexible working regulations.

Ms Tofeji then left her job, claiming sexual discrimination, unfair dismissal and breaches of maternity and flexible working conditions.

However, the tribunal ruled that BNP Paribas did not behave unreasonably over the banker’s four-day working week request and had made proper arrangements for her return after maternity leave. The tribunal threw out her constructive dismissal allegation, along with the other claims.

Ms Tofeji’s solicitor, Samantha Mangwana, said: “This judgment is a missed opportunity to deal with the widespread sex discrimination in the City that still persists.”

Ms Tofeji’s legal team are now considering whether to appeal.

A spokesman for BNP Paribas said that the company was pleased that all the claims had been unsuccessful.

“BNP Paribas and its current and former employees have been totally vindicated and the allegations made have been found to be unsubstantiated,” he said.

Financial Times, June 22, 2007

Over 60 per cent of senior executives fail to take their full holiday entitlement, a new poll has revealed.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) questioned 700 senior managers about their use of holiday allowance and found that 63 per cent did not plan to take all available days this year – up from 40 per cent in 2003. In spite of this, 77 per cent of respondents admitted that holidays helped them ‘cope better with work stress’ and 94 per cent agreed that holidays enabled them to ‘recharge their batteries’.

When questioned whether they were entitled to exchange holiday entitlement for other benefits, 70 per cent said that there was no such option available but, for 15 per cent, unused allowance could be ‘sold back’ for cash. The survey also revealed a slight increase in the number of organisations offering flexible working as an alternative to holidays.

Jo Causon, director, marketing and corporate affairs at the Chartered Management Institute, said: “Taking time off for a proper break is not a sign of weakness, so individuals should be encouraged to use their holiday entitlement to the full. With growing numbers also keen to offset their travel arrangements perhaps employers could consider carbon offsetting as an option for employees looking to exchange unused holiday time.”

Chartered Management Institute press release, July 3, 2007