For many women, returning to work after maternity leave can feel like a daunting prospect and one of the biggest sticking points is in relation to those who continue to breastfeed or express milk once their maternity leave has ended.

Here, Banner Jones’ Head of Employment law, Katie Ash, looks at the state of current legislation here in the UK. 

Even now the restrictions are easing and many more businesses are opening their doors, some commercial tenants may still be struggling to pay rent in full and on a regular basis. Both parties to a commercial lease contract should understand how their liabilities and obligations have been affected by COVID-19 and ideally work together towards a solution before the eviction protection comes to an end in June.

Handling an employee’s return to work after maternity leave can feel like a bit of a minefield to most employers. Added to this is the risk of expensive pregnancy and maternity related discrimination claims as well as possible sex discrimination and constructive dismissal claims if they get things wrong.

For many business owners and decision makers, the lockdown restrictions introduced as a result of the Covid-19 crisis have provided them with an unprecedented opportunity to review their operations.

To the dismay of employees, but a decision arguably welcomed by employers, the Supreme Court has recently ruled in cases Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad and another (T/A Clifton House Residential Home) that sleep-in shift workers are not ‘working’ when they are asleep. This in turn means that care workers should only be paid the National Minimum Wage hourly rate on sleep-in shifts when they are awake for the purposes of actively working.

Over time, the gap between women’s and men’s median hourly earnings has been narrowing. In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) it has fallen by over a quarter among full-time employees in the last decade.

 

On the 20th February 2021, the Supreme Court handed down its Judgment in the long awaited Uber case (Uber BV and Others v Aslam and Others). All six Judges unanimously ruled that the Uber drivers were workers, not self-employed contractors and as a result were entitled to basic employment rights like National Minimum Wage, holiday pay and sick pay.

With the country now in its third lockdown, it is clear that the hospitality sector has been hit the hardest and with no sign of hotels, pubs and restaurants reopening soon, employers in this sector will be almost certainly be facing some tough decisions about their staff in the coming weeks and months.

After a lengthy transition period, the UK has now left the EU with a deal agreed. While many possible scenarios have been discussed at length in recent years, until now we have been limited to speculation and conjecture in terms of what the outcome might be. Not to mention how it might affect businesses and, more specifically, employees.

Employers need to protect the mental health of those who work alone. This blog gives you an overview of what you should be considering.

For many, 2020 will go down in history as the year that changed everything, and one of the most significant changes was the way in which we work.

Here, our employment law team cover some of the most commonly asked questions relating to holiday during the pandemic.

When the Covid-19 crisis forced the country into lockdown back in March, many businesses, in many sectors, were forced to close their doors to employees, clients and customers alike. In response, the Government announced a temporary ban on evictions of commercial property tenants. A move that was welcomed, initially, as a way of securing the longer-term future of certain companies and, in turn, the jobs of their staff.