As we reach the midpoint of 2022, HR professionals would be forgiven for losing track of all the live employment law proposals and what they mean for their organisation. To assist HR with planning for the rest of the year and beyond, we round up the major employment law changes in the pipeline as of mid-2022.
In The Harpur Trust v Brazel, the Court of Appeal held that holiday pay for "part-year workers" should not be calculated on a pro rata basis, but by applying the approach set out in s.224 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and calculating average weekly remuneration over the previous 12 weeks.
In Roddis v Sheffield Hallam University, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a lecturer employed under a zero hours contract was employed under the same type of contract as a permanent full-time lecturer for the purposes of his claim of less favourable treatment under the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/1551).
The European Court of Justice has confirmed that the holiday pay of a worker on a zero hours contract placed on short-time working can be calculated on a pro rata basis.
In Vernon v Event Management Catering Ltd EAT/0161/07 the EAT held that a casual worker who, with the exception of a single two-week break to take a holiday, worked every week for more than three years was an employee and had sufficient continuity of service to claim unfair dismissal. He could demonstrate the existence of a contract of employment in each week during the relevant period and the period of holiday did not break his continuity of employment.