Managing employees/workers
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.
In Landsorganisationen i Danmark v NY Molle Kro [1989] IRLR 37 ECJ, the European Court of Justice held that the Acquired Rights Directive (EEC Directive 77/187) is applicable where, following a legal transfer or merger, there is a change in the legal or natural person who is responsible for carrying on the business and who by virtue of that fact incurs the obligations of an employer vis-a-vis employees of the undertaking, regardless of whether or not ownership of the undertaking is transferred.
In Lewis v Surrey County Council, the House of Lords rules that where an employee is employed under separate but concurrent part-time contracts, she is not entitled to aggregate the number of weekly hours worked under each contract in order to establish that a week "counts" towards a period of employment for the purposes of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978.
In Institution of Professional Civil Servants and others v Secretary of State for Defence the High Court rejects a complaint by various trade unions that the Secretary of State had not Informed and consulted them about a proposed transfer of two dockyards to commercial management, as required by s.1 of the Dockyard Services Act 1986.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to managing employees/workers.