Asociación Nacional de Grandes Empresas de Distribución (ANGED) v Federación de Asociaciones Sindicales (FASGA) and ors, ECJ-2012

The European Court of Justice holds that, in accordance with the principle in Pereda v Madrid Movilidad, A worker who falls sick prior to starting his annual leave, or during his annual leave will be entitled to interrupt that annual leave and take it at a later date. In effect, the ECJ is saying that under the EU Working Time Directive an individual is entitled to four weeks leave and if he is sick then the four weeks must be independent of that period.
The concern for employers is the potential abuse of such a rule and rigorous sickness reporting procedures will have to be introduced to stop such abuse. So we could have a situation where an employee has two weeks leave and claims that in one of those weeks he was ill! Furthermore, he may also argue that there was no possibility of contacting the office, or getting a medical certificate!

Future legislation changes
2013-The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill will:

• allow tribunals to levy financial penalties, payable to the Exchequer, on employers found to have breached employment rights where the employer's behaviour in committing the breach had 'aggravating features'
• require prospective claimants to contact Acas before they can begin certain types of employment tribunal proceedings, so that parties can be offered conciliation to attempt to resolve their dispute without it reaching the tribunal system
• prevent employment tribunals hearing claims of unfair dismissal from taking into account any offer made, or discussions held, with a view to an employee's employment terminating on agreed terms.

Feb 2014 - Automatic enrolment into pensions for employers with 250 or more members in their PAYE scheme.

Eligible employees will be automatically enrolled into pensions with mandatory employer contributions. The Pensions Act 2008 creates new offences and a new head of automatic unfair dismissal, where employees are dismissed for exercising their rights under the Act, or due to the employer being prosecuted under the Act. Workers also have the right not to suffer a detriment as a result of enforcing their rights under the Act.

April 2015: - Automatic enrolment into pensions for employers with 50 to 249 members in their PAYE scheme.

June 2015: - Automatic enrolment into pensions for a test tranche of employers with less than 30 members in their PAYE scheme.

Early 2013: - Portable CRB checks are intended to be checkable online by employers.

For a small annual fee an individual’s record will be kept up to date ending delays and repeated expensive applications.