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According to statistics published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), far more employees are now aware that they can request to work flexibly than in 2003 when the right was first introduced.
The Second Flexible Working Employee Survey 2005 found that nearly 65 per cent of the UK workforce were aware of the right, compared to 41 per cent two years ago.
The study showed that nearly a quarter of working parents with young children asked to work flexibly over the last two years. In all, 14 per cent of employees made a request.
The survey found that:
Women were more likely to have made a request than men (19 per cent compared to 10 per cent)
Women were most likely to request to work part-time, while men were more likely to ask to work flexibly
Employers are now allowing far more requests - 81 percent compared to 77 per cent in 2003
Almost one in five employees reported taking time off to care for someone in the last two years, with over half taking time off to look after dependent children.
Go to www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/errs39.pdf to access the survey (PDF file).
Labour and European Law Review is 100 this month. We're not expecting a telegram from the Queen, but it's a significant milestone all the same.
The first edition appeared in July 1996. It covered a wide range of topics including new cases on TUPE regulations, equal pay and lesbian and gay rights, among others.
Its purpose then, as now, was to keep trade union officials and their members up to date with key developments in the fields of equal rights, employment, trade union and industrial relations law in the UK and Europe. All complex and fast moving areas.
Although the review has changed in style over the years, the core format has remained much the same with solicitors from the ERU team providing their expert advice in articles and features that focus on key cases as well as wider developments in the law.
We hope that you enjoy the next hundred editions of the review as much as you have told us you that enjoyed the last hundred. If you have any comments, please feel free to get in touch - your views are always welcome.
ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) has launched another new e-learning course, this time about the rights of working parents. It covers topics such as:
Maternity rights and pay
Paternity leave and pay
Adoption leave and pay
Parental leave
Time off to help dependants
The right to request flexible working.
To learn more, go to www.acas.org.uk and click onto the e-learning section.
The conciliation service has also produced the second issue of Employment Relations Matter, a quarterly e-mail bulletin written mainly by members of its Strategy Unit. The aim of the articles is to provoke comment and discussion from a wide readership and do not necessarily reflect the views of ACAS itself.
This issue contains three main features:
Time to put quality back into working life?
Managing conflict at work - lessons from ACAS
Bullying and harassment.
Go to wwww.acas.org.uk/strategy/pdf/6772_ACAS.pdf to access the bulletin (PDF file).
ACAS has just updated its good practice guide for employers, looking at tackling discrimination and promoting equality.
It has also produced a booklet on representation at work which looks at the benefits of representation for both workers and employers, and how it might work in practice.
More sections of the Employment Relations Act 2004 came into effect on 6 April 2005. These include:
clarifying how the appropriate bargaining unit is to be determined by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC)
provisions to appoint a suitable independent person to handle union correspondence with a bargaining unit when the CAC has accepted an application for recognition
postal voting for workers away from the workplace at the time of a ballot
confirmation that "pay" does not include pension schemes for collective bargaining purposes
provisions to speed up the recognition or derecognition process
giving ACAS the power to require information to settle a recognition dispute
extending the protected period for taking lawful action from eight to twelve weeks ("locked out" days are disregarded when calculating this period)
introducing new matters that a tribunal has to take into account when assessing whether an employer has taken reasonable procedural steps to resolve a dispute with a union.
employees have the right not to be dismissed or treated detrimentally because of serving on a jury, including selection for redundancy
employees dismissed for making a flexible working application can complain of unfair dismissal even when involved in official or unofficial industrial action
flexible workers do not need to satisfy the one-year qualification rule for claiming unfair dismissal.
After a long wait, the DTI has finally published a draft version of the new Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2005. The Government is now consulting on whether the draft regulations implement the policy decisions it has already taken (and on which it consulted widely).
The regulations (which should come into force on 1 October 2005) are aimed at:
improving business flexibility
increasing the transparency of the transfer process
clarifying the circumstances in which employers can lawfully make transfer-related dismissals and negotiate transfer-related changes to terms and conditions of employment for "economic, technical or organisational" reasons
giving a significant boost to the Government's promotion of the "rescue culture".
The consultation closes on 7 June 2005. Go to: www.dti.gov.uk/ er/tupeconsultation.pdf to access the consultation document (PDF file).
Following the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Alabaster v Woolwich plc and the Secretary of State for Social Security (LELR 89) last year, Parliament has now approved a new set of regulations to give effect to it.
Basically the ECJ said that if a woman gets a pay increase between the beginning of the "relevant period" (the eight week period used to calculate her earnings for statutory maternity pay purposes) and the end of her maternity leave, the employer has to go back and include that pay rise in her earnings.
Go to www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/benefits/ecj_judgement.asp for guidance on the new regulations.
In February 2005's LELR (Hollow Victory for Claimants), relying on advice from the Department of Constitutional Affairs, we wrote that Acas conciliated settlements cannot be registered in the county court. Acas has confirmed that if a settlement is not honoured and the tribunal will not re-open the case, the claimant can instigate county court action for breach of contract. The county court cannot re-open the original tribunal claim.