Employment

Can My Employer Reduce My Hours?

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Question

“I need to know can my employer reduce my hours? I am the manager of a taxi firm and work 39 hours per week Monday to Friday.  I am worried, can my employer reduce my hours? My boss used to drive my autistic son to his special school until an incident occurred and he refused to take my son on this contract. I reported him to licencing for driving while talking on his mobile. Things have never been the same since and he has now reduced my hours to 16 hours with immediate effect. I will only be working two days a week on minimum wage. He said I can use my holidays this week and start back next Thursday 31st March. My other problem is that he took on a part timer about three weeks ago and this doesn’t affect him, whereas I’ve been here for well over five years. I’m also concerned that he pays other people cash in hand to cover some shifts in the office.”

“Please can you tell me my rights, as I need to inform working/child tax that I’m going part time.  Can he legally do this to me?  He says things are financially strangling him and will cover my shifts. I’m paid cash, fully on the books, get a weekly wage slip along with a weekly wage.   I claim working tax and child tax credits and am the sole earner in our household. I have never received a written contract, but so far, he’s stuck to all aspects of employment law i.e. 28 days holidays etc and the correct minimum wage.”

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GDPR, References and Confidential Information

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The GDPR impacts on the giving of references and supplying confidential information
Employers are advised to write a clear policy on the giving of references. The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has said employers should have a clear policy setting out, which employees are authorised to give references and in what circumstances.

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SRA – new focus on “principles” not “rules”

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The SRA is focussing on ‘principles’ and ‘professional judgement’ as opposed to ‘rules’ A principle based system is more uncertain than fixed rules and therefore it is more important to legal practices to have a set of recorded systems and controls in place that are applied consistently across the firm. The rules are clear particularly … Read more

Data Processors and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

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Data Protection
Whether you are a Data Controller or a Data Processor you have responsibilities under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A controller determines the purposes and means of processing personal data, whereas a processor is responsible for processing personal data on behalf of a controller and you are required to maintain records of personal data and processing activities.

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Data Protection and Subject Access Requests

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subject access requests - data protection

An increasing number of subject access requests have been made under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Subject access requests are used as tactical ploys as a way of putting pressure on the other side to disclose documents that would not otherwise be disclosable in litigation. Several cases have been

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Notice period for termination of a contract

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In the case of Newcastle’s NHS v Haywood (2017) EWCA Civ 153 the question of when does notice of termination of a contract take effect was considered. The best practice is for express provision in a contract of employment to specify when notice will be effective. The alternatives are common law principles that need consideration and the question to be asked is, when does contractual notice take effect on, 1. Posting of a letter 2. Delivery of the letter or 3. Communication of the notice to the employee so they are aware of it?

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Confidential Information – Damages

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Where two employees of a large asset management firm were sued for £15 million for taking confidential information, but the employer’s only recovered £2 (nominal damages). The reason for this is that the employees had made no use of the confidential information. Therefore the employer had suffered no losses – Marathon v Seddon [2017] EWHC 300. This serves as a useful reminder to employers suing former

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Immigration checks

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Failure to carry out ‘right to work’ checks can result in civil liability of up to £20,000 per illegal employee/worker. Businesses should be aware of the potential immigration checks and the risks of being investigated by the immigration authorities

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