Managing employees/workers
An employee cannot complain that he or she has been refused time off for trade union duties unless it is established that a request for time off was made which came to the notice of the employer's appropriate representative, and that they either refused it, ignored it or failed to respond to it, holds the EAT in Ryford Ltd v Drinkwater.
In Lane v The Shire Roofing Co (Oxford) Ltd, the Court of Appeal holds that a roofer hired by a company for an individual roofing job was an employee, and so the company was liable to pay damages for the personal injury he suffered when he fell off his ladder whilst carrying out that work.
The EAT holds in McMeechan v Secretary of State for Employment and another that where a temporary worker's relationship with an employment agency or business is governed by a written contract, the employment status of that worker is dependent on the construction of the contractual terms.
An industrial tribunal was entitled to find that fundamental changes in the nature of the business carried on in a hospital shop after it was contracted-out to a private operator had "destroyed" any identity between the latter business and its predecessor, holds the EAT in Mathieson and another v United News Shops Ltd.
The "Business Transfers" Directive covers a situation in which an employer contracts-out cleaning operations which were previously performed in-house, even though prior to the transfer the work was being done by only one employee, rules the European Court of Justice in Schmidt v Spar-und Leihkasse der früheren Ämter Bordesholm, Kiel und Cronshagen.
An employee who left his job because of ill health and took lighter work elsewhere before returning to his original employer, did not lose his continuity of employment, holds the EAT in Donnelly v Kelvin International Services. This is because the statutory provisions which preserve continuity during periods of sickness or injury relate to the employee's capability to perform his or her original job.
In Hairsine v Kingston-upon-Hull City Council, the EAT holds that a trade union official's right to paid time off work for training is limited to those hours when the employee would normally be at work. If the training course falls outside those hours, the employee is not entitled to paid time off "in lieu" during his or her contractual working hours.
In Berwick Salmon Fisheries Co Ltd v Rutherford and others the EAT holds that periods fishermen spent out of work between seasonal contracts of employment could not be described as "relatively short". The breaks were not therefore "temporary cessations of work" within the statutory definition and continuity of employment was broken.
An employer's right to require overtime from an employee who is under a contractual obligation to be "on call" for a specified number of hours in excess of his basic working week, is subject to the employer's implied duty to take reasonable care not to injure its employee's health, holds the Court of Appeal in Johnstone v Bloomsbury Health Authority.
An industrial tribunal was entitled to find that, in the circumstances of this case, lobbying of Parliament was not a trade union activity entitling union members to time off.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to managing employees/workers.