Employment law changes

Developments in employment law that may affect pubs

by Claire Davies and Richard Williams of thePublican.com's legal team of experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson​

Employment law is a rapidly moving area, which is likely to have a major practical impact on your business. Earlier this year, I wrote about changes to the law that were introduced in April, especially those relating to requests for flexible working patterns by parents. The following are some more recent developments which are likely to affect you.

Dispute resolution​

Consultation on the dispute resolution provisions of the Employment Act 2002 is due to take place this summer with a view to such provisions becoming law by 2004.

The aim of these provisions is to encourage dispute resolution in the workplace and to limit the number of complaints made to employment tribunals.

Anyone who has had experience of an employment tribunal claim will know how potentially time-consuming and costly such a claim can be and, in principle, therefore these provisions should be welcomed.

However, the provisions introduce statutory disciplinary and grievance procedures that must be incorporated into all employment contracts. This will mean employers will have to review their existing disciplinary and/or grievance procedures or introduce new ones, to ensure that they comply with the requirements of these procedures.

Employers and employees will also need to be aware of the consequences of the following provisions.

• if employers do not follow the new statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures prior to dismissal, a dismissal will automatically be unfair.
• employees must follow the new statutory grievance procedures before applying to an employment tribunal.
• in the event of an employer or employee failing to comply with the requirements of these procedures, the level of compensation awarded by an employment tribunal may be increased or decreased by between 10 per cent and 50 per cent to reflect such a failure.

Injury to feelings in unfair dismissal cases​

Last month an important decision was handed down in the case of Dunnachie v Kingston upon Hull City Council by the employment appeal tribunal. The decision in this case was important because it cleared up an unresolved legal issue. The issue in question was whether or not awards for injury to feelings in unfair dismissal cases should be made. The employment appeal tribunal decided in this case that such awards should not be made and that compensation for unfair dismissal should be limited to economic loss only. This decision will undoubtedly be welcomed by employers.

National minimum wage​

The National Minimum Wage (Enforcement Notices) Bill received royal assent on May 8 2003. This act, which amends the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, closed a loophole in the law, brought to light by a recent case, that only allowed enforcement notices to be served on employers in respect of current employees.

Employers, therefore, need to take note that this amendment to the law now allows enforcement notices to be served in respect of employees whether or not they are still in the employment of the employer.