Top 10 Employment issues of 2011

Now is the season when the media starts looking back over the last 12 months and makes lists of significant events or achievements. Without wanting to be left out, here are, in no particular order, our list of the big employment issues of 2011:-

1)     The Royal Wedding – this was the most searched term on Google this year but the wedding also raised the question as to whether employers had to give employees time off to watch the happy occasion. This is likely to be an issue again next year when we get an extra bank holiday for the Diamond Jubilee.

2)     Auto-Enrolment for Pension Schemes – The government slowed the requirement for employers to auto-enrol their employees into a pension scheme by announcing that employers with fewer than 50 employees are no longer required to comply with the current deadline of September 2012 to enrol their employees and will now have until either May 2015 or September 2016.

3)     The Introduction of Employment Tribunal Fees - The government announced that it is seeking to charge fees in the employment tribunal. The proposed fees are between £200 and £1,750 to issue a claim with other fees payable for applications and listing claims for a full hearing. The consultation  closes in March 2012.    

4)     Scrapping of the Default Retirement Age – The default retirement age of 65 years has now been phased out and employers will have the difficult task of justifying any fixed retirement age that they seek to have in place. Alternatively they will have to consider other reasons to dismiss such as capability or redundancy.

5)     Sickness and Holiday Pay – The European Court of Justice case of KHS AG v Schulte  has been a favourable from an employers point of view as the court found that there cannot be an indefinite carry over of holiday entitlement where employees are on long term sick leave. 

6)     Pension Dispute with Public Sector Workers – Public sector workers resistance to government proposals to reform their pensions culminated in a mass strike on 30 November with teachers, NHS workers and local government workers all walking out that day. Talks are still ongoing and progress is apparently being made but to date no final agreement has been reached.

7)     New paternity leave provisions – Parents can now share maternity leave with the father being able to take up to 26 weeks of any maternity leave that is untaken by the mother.

8)     Agency Workers Regulations – After 12 weeks service agency workers are now entitled to the same rights as their permanent counterparts in respect of pay, working time, rest breaks, night work and annual leave.

9)     The requirement for two years service before an employee can claim unfair dismissal - This is a big change in employment law as from April employers can dismiss employees with less than two years’ service (as opposed to the current requirement of one year’s service) without needing a fair reason  - as long as the reason is not discriminatory. 

And finally:…

10) Carry on Nurse!  - The case of the senior staff nurse who was found to have been unfairly dismissed for making a suggestive remark after she had to sit on top of a naked patient so that he could be administered his medication was arguably the most amusing employment case of the year.