The coalition Government has implemented a number of measures that have reduced individual employee rights. The qualifying service to bring an unfair dismissal claim has been increased from one year to two years. From this summer, claimants will al  More...
10 May 2013 08:52

Consultant editor Darren Newman looks back at the employment law position in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher came to power, and the legacy left by her Government on the workplace. When I first began studying employment law, Margaret Thatcher was Prime M  More...
09 April 2013 11:58

Employers will be able to design their own apprenticeship standards and qualifications, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will announce today. One of the key findings of the Richard Review was that many employers hesitate to employ apprentices bec  More...
14 March 2013 11:04

Despite a fall in the number of days lost to industrial action, trade unions are finding alternative ways to exert pressure on employers. This is the chief finding of a new report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Mana  More...
02 November 2012 11:46

Civil servants are to face new restrictions on the amount of paid time they can spend on trade union activities, under proposals set out at the Conservative Party conference today. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced that civil servants   More...
08 October 2012 16:46

R (on the application of Bakhsh) v Northumberland Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust FACTS Mr Bakhsh was employed as a mental health nurse by Northumberland Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust from 1998 to 2008. He was dismissed in 2008 and   More...
03 September 2012 10:33

The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) has announced that the number of applications it received for trade union recognition last year rose by half (54%). In its annual report, the CAC said that it had received 43 applications for trade union recogni  More...
06 July 2012 09:56

Ever since it was announced in 2005 that London would be hosting the 2012 Olympics, trade unions have been gearing up to make demands on employers. Mainline train workers and Network Rail staff have already secured a £500 bonus for the extra work they a  More...
27 June 2012 12:34

An employee relations adviser has compared Unite's attempts to agree national minimum standards for fuel-tanker drivers, employed by seven different companies, to getting all the major UK supermarkets to agree unified pay and working conditions for thei  More...
05 April 2012 16:48

The presence of trade unions in workplaces could be saving employers in the private and public sectors as much £701 million per year, in large part because such workplaces are safer and workers are better trained and motivated as a result, a report by t  More...
27 February 2012 10:09

Public sector unions have lost their High Court battle over alterations to how pensions are calculated. George Osborne announced in his emergency Budget in June 2010 that, with effect from April 2011, pensions would be uprated using the consume  More...
02 December 2011 16:21

EXCLUSIVE  The Unison ballot, in which members voted yes to a strike over public sector pensions, could be "fatally flawed", meaning that employers could put a stop to the planned "day of action" on 30 November.   More...
03 November 2011 15:58

Public sector unions have said that they are "firmly committed" to continuing preparations for a planned day of industrial action at the end of the month, despite a new offer from the Government on pensions. The Government set out details of its new  More...
03 November 2011 09:13

Unions are ramping up efforts to recruit minority workers, according to the  TUC Equality Audit   published this week. The audit, conducted every two years, looks at trade unions' internal activities and how they are building equali  More...
13 September 2011 15:28

Laura Chamberlain asks if strike laws should be changed with the UK facing potential mass strikes. With up to 500,000 people having protested against spending cuts on 26 March and unions threatening coordinated strike action over pension r  More...
29 March 2011 12:11

Lord Hutton's report on public sector pensions, which recommends increased payments, working longer and a reduction in the value of existing pensions, threatens to "light the blue touch paper for industrial action" and may result in mass coordinated str  More...
10 March 2011 12:41

The Government should end collective bargaining between unions and employers in the NHS and education sectors in order to boost productivity, the Institute of Directors (IoD) has said. Joe McMorrow, employment lawyer at Pinsent Masons,  More...
07 February 2011 11:02

Recent news that the BBC paid out almost £600,000 dealing with employment tribunal claims last year has highlighted the tremendous amount of money British companies spend when dealing with conflict in the workplace. Nor does the BBC example inclu  More...
17 January 2011 11:08

Another outbreak of Swine flu has hit the UK, and is expected to hit employees and employers severely.  With significant rise in the number of flu cases , including the H1N1 "swine flu" virus, the focus for everyone – especial  More...
05 January 2011 09:43

Employers that force staff to work on April 2011's extra bank holiday will create "huge resentment" among their workforce, the TUC has warned. Warning: there will also be an additional bank holiday in 2012 In 2012 there will be a  More...
26 November 2010 12:45