A number of useful articles were added to the Northern Ireland Employment Law Hub throughout the months of May and June. Here is a quick recap of some of the recent developments within the employment law sphere:

Enhanced Redundancy Payments
Jack Balmer, Associate Solicitor from Tughans outlines an employer’s options in a redundancy situation where they wish to pay an enhanced redundancy payment but do not wish to then be subjected to any subsequent legal action arising out of the redundancy dismissal. 

Returning to Work from Long-term Sick Leave
Patricia Rooney, Partner in the Employment Team at Tughans discusses the issues around supporting an employee who wishes to return to work from long-term sick leave and what payments should be made to the employee when the employer has concerns about the Employee’s fitness to return.


Right to Work Checks – Putting contractual protections in place
All employers must conduct right to work checks when recruiting new staff and may face severe criminal and civil penalties if they fail to do so. Uncertainty around Brexit means that it is unclear what these checks will constitute once the UK leaves the EU.

Kiera Lee, Director in Mills Selig, considers the contractual clauses that an employer can insert into their contracts for all employees, to help provide protection in ascertaining and confirming an individual’s’ right to work’ status.  She also briefly discusses the impact that Brexit could have on an employer’s legal obligations in preventing illegal working.

The Modern Slavery Act – understanding your obligations
In the third of our ‘Back to Basics’ video series, Gareth Walls, Partner and Head of the A&L Goodbody Employment and Incentives team, discusses the implications of the Modern Slavery Act for Northern Ireland Employers.  He outlines the compliance requirements and considers how these might be achieved through monitoring and auditing.

Length of service and additional annual leave - Can service in other member states be discounted?
In this  ‘Commercial Law for Employers’ article, Kevin McVeigh, Partner and Head of the Corporate and Commercial Department in EDG Solicitors, considers the preliminary ruling in the CJEU case of Gemeinsamer Betriebsrat EurothermenResort Bad Schallerbach GmbH v EurothermenResort Bad Schallerbach GmbH C-437/17.

TUPE Update: Automatically Unfair Dismissals; EU Acquired Rights Directive
In this Update Dr John McMullen, Stone King LLP, reports on the automatic unfair dismissal TUPE case of Hare Wines Ltd v Kaur. And we take the opportunity to note activity at European Court level on the EU Acquired Rights Directive.


Transfer of Undertakings - Your Questions Answered
Still on TUPE Matters - in this special feature article we asked Adam Brett of Jones Cassidy Brett Solicitors and Rogers Watts of C&J Black Solicitors to answer your questions around the ever-complex area of TUPE.

First Tuesday Q&A’s
Over the last couple of months, Johanna Cunningham, Associate Solicitor in the Employment Team at Arthur Cox has answered a wide variety of questions, including:

• Contacting bereaved employees – how do I handle it?
• Communicating a pay rise to an employee – what do I need to provide?
• Can an employer disclose a departing employee’s restrictive covenants to their new employer?
• What constitutes “one establishment” for collective consultation purposes?
• Do probationary periods apply to staff members redeployed to a different role within a business?

These and many more of your burning questions are available here.

Employment Law Webinars
Recordings of the ‘Employment Law at 11’ webinar series with Seamus McGranaghan, Director, O’Reilly Stewart Solicitors and Scott Alexander, Head of Learning and Development at Legal Island are available to listen again.

Over the past couple of months, the webinars have dealt issues around:

• Discipline and Grievance
• Redundancy
• GDPR
• Sickness Absence
• Working Time
• National Minimum Wage issues

Transcripts of the webinars are also available along with questions and answers from the webinars are available.

Weekly Reviews of Employment Law Developments

Some of the highlights from our recent weekly reviews:

• Review of the PSNI Holiday Pay Case
• Whistleblowing – test of Vicarious Liability
• GDPR - One Year On - Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, has written a blog to coincide with the 1st year anniversary of the implementation of the GDPR.
• Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank SAE [2019] CJEU C 55/18 – we provide a review of the CJEU case which concerns record keeping for the purposes of the Working Time Directive and the implications of this for UK employers.
• On a similar theme Workers In The UK Are Putting In The Longest Hours In The EU According To New TUC Analysis.
• Chancellor signals potential further increase to national living wage -  The government is consulting on a further increase to the national living wage – potentially to two-thirds of median earnings – in a move experts have said would raise concerns about productivity and affordability for businesses.