November news

In the news…

EU call time on opt out

At the time of writing, it seems that the European parliament is likely to rule against the UK retaining its current opt out while the French are set to abolish the domestic legislation enshrining their traditional 35 hour week .
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TUC calls for redundancy enhancement

In a masterpiece of bad timing, the TUC is calling for Alistair Darling to review redundancy arrangements as part of this month’s pre-budget report.
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Tribunal awards hit £32m

A freedom of information request from The Daily Telegraph has led to the disclosure that 2006 – 2007 saw record sums awarded by Employment Tribunals with unfair dismissal awards representing the highest category of claim.
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Statutory retirement ruling in ‘Heyday’ case

In a surprise ruling, the Advocate General has recommended that the case brought by older person’s charity Heyday against compulsory retirement at 65, be dismissed.
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New code on discipline and grievance

Acas has published it’s revised draft code of practice for discipline and grievance in advance of next April’s implementation and current indications are that it will be passed without change by the Government.
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Jonathan Ross and Haringey Council – ‘A mad world my masters’

In the last fortnight, a BBC presenter has been suspended for three months without pay for bad taste humour which was sanctioned by his senior manager and several social workers in a London Borough have received ‘written warnings’ for their parts in the systematic torture and subsequent murder of a child by three people when the child was under their supervision.(
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Disappearing bullshit – searching for the silver lining

Regular readers will know that something mildly amusing or just plain silly often ends the news section of ‘People Matters’. Not original, we know, but like Trevor MacDonald and News at Ten before us, it seems to work. Articles with ‘chocolate’ or ‘bastard’ in the title are our most read, according to the web stats.
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Legal update

Calculating retirement age

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Defining a grievance

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Time off for dependents

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White paper

Surviving a downturn

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