LEGISLATION 

Proposed Directive on Agency Workers:

The European Parliament (“EP”) has now approved the Commission’s proposal giving temporary workers supplied by agencies the same pay and conditions as in-house staff. The EP did however amend the proposal so that rather than being entitled to these rights after 6 weeks (as originally proposed by the Commission), temporary agency workers will become entitled from day one of employment. The UK Government and employers will of course continue to push for rights to apply after only 1 years’ complete service.

The Flexible Working Regulations:

The draft Flexible Working (Procedural Requirements) Regulations, have been amended following consultation (see Bite Size December 2002). The main change being the insertion of a new regulation 16 which makes it unlawful for an employee to be subjected to detrimental treatment because he or she has sought to exercise the right to be accompanied to a meeting held in accordance with these regulations or because he or she has sought to accompany another employee.

The draft Flexible Working (Eligibility, Complaints and Remedies) Regulations 2003 which will work in conjunction with the above have also now been published. These regulations provide:

An employee must be continuously employed for six months in order to make a request for flexible working;

If the employer fails to hold a meeting with the employee, or fails to notify the employee of his decision, it will have to pay the employee up to eight weeks’ pay. (The statutory cap on a week’s pay will apply)

It is interesting to note however that there is no enforcement mechanism where the employer has unreasonably refused a request to work part-time or where the reason given is not one of those prescribed in the new s80G of Employment Rights Act 1996. In effect employers could get away with never having to actually grant a request for part time work as long as they appear to have considered it at least. The act does however, under s80H give the secretary of state a broad power to impose penalties in this regard.

Working Time Regulations:

Further to last months Bite Size, the Working Time Regulations are to be amended so that overall over-time (not just guaranteed overtime) is to be included in the calculation of average night-time working limits.

TUPE:

The DTI guide to TUPE has now been published and can be viewed at http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/individual/tupe-p1699.htm