Due in part to the #MeToo movement, employers have experienced an influx of workplace sexual harassment claims. More than ever, employers have been reminded of their legal and ethical duties to create harassment-free workplaces. These duties involve preventing foreseeable sexual harassment including proactively training employees about discrimination and harassment. This also entails properly investigating sexual harassment claims and immediately correcting known harassment ...
In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) have issued guidance for employers. The guidelines provide guidance on how to determine if COVID-19 is a hazard in the workplace and employer obligations. Is COVID-19 a Workplace Hazard? Employers should determine if COVID-19 infection is a hazard in their workplace ...
OSHA is considering rules to address heat injury and stress in the workplace. On October 27, 2021, OSHA filed an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("ANPRM") for Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings. The ANPRM includes 114 questions and seeks public input on heat-related issues that should be addressed in any standard, including possible controls or measures that might be considered to address heat-related injury and stress ...
“Desperate times call for desperate measures”. We are all aware that the global crisis is impacting employers worldwide. Companies have been forced to close production lines, non-core activities have been transferred to outsourced service providers and numerous workplaces have been forced to close all together. It has become a struggle to merely hold onto one’s job. Such circumstances have facilitated the increase of workplace harassment (i.e. mobbing) ...
Bullying in the workplace and allegations of bullying harassment at work have seldom been out of the headlines. Politicians such as ex-speaker John Bercow or Home Secretary Priti Patel have been accused of such behaviour ...
A federal appellate court in the Midwest suggests that while unions do not have blanket approval to inspect an employer’s worksite, the union’s interest in safety generally will outweigh an employer’s interest in confidentiality and property rights. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Caterpillar, Inc. v. NLRB, 803 F.3d 360 (7th Cir ...
The existence of labor protection shields, which limit the number of hours that must make up an ordinary working day, is a common denominator in Central American labor legislations, and in the case of El Salvador, there is even the peculiarity that these limits are expressly determined from the imperative Constitutional Norm, which makes them even more difficult to modify than if they were established in the Secondary Legislation. The Salvadoran Constitution in its Art. 38 Ord ...
With increased cost of living and ongoing economic uncertainty, more and more workers are being forced to take on two (or more) jobs to cover soaring energy bills and pricey food shops. What do employers need to know and watch out for when this happens? Is having a second job permitted? It is not necessarily unusual for employees to have more than one job at the same time ...
A temporary work agency had, over a period of four years, hired out workers to an oil company that had a bonus scheme at company level for its employees. The Supreme Court found that the bonus scheme was a form of performance-related pay and thus covered by the term «pay» in section 14-12 a subsection 1 (f) of the Working Environment Act. The temporary work agency was thus obliged to pay a bonus to the two workers as if they had been permanently employed in the oil company ...
The recent decision of the FOPH (FOPH, decision of 11.12.2018 - 1 ABR 13/17) gives additional grounds for further clarifying the practical question of to what extent the conduct of an employee survey is subject to worker participation by the works council. The Respondent - a parent company of a postal and logistics company - has been carrying out an annual Group-wide employee survey since 2007 using a standardized electronic questionnaire ...
In order to reduce community transmission and preserve everyone's safety and that of our healthcare system, the government requires everyone to make extra efforts, both in their private lives and at work. The closure of retail businesses, save for some exceptions, is maintained, the lockdown to prevent gatherings continues and a curfew was added on January 9, 2021, to remain in effect until the currently announced date of February 8, 2021 1 ...
This article explores the reasons why sickness absence and mental health issues may rise among employees during the festive period and what employers can do to support their employees during this time. Christmas is traditionally an exciting time of year, but the colder weather and shorter nights can cause lower mood for a lot of people. When feeling low, people can also be more susceptible to illness, picking up unwanted coughs and colds which leaves them feeling even lower ...
In an increasingly unpredictable climate, adverse weather can prevent employees from attending the workplace on time, or at all. Here, we discuss what employers can do to mitigate the effect of adverse weather on their business ...
Christmas parties are designed to be fun, but a few festive drinks can quickly get out of hand if not managed correctly. A sobering thought is that employers can be vicariously liable for the action of employees during work events such as Christmas parties. In order to minimise the risks, we explore the steps employers can take before and after any work social event ...
Winter can be a hectic time of year, with stress levels heightened by frantic planning for the festive season and employers may be overwhelmed by annual leave requests. How can employers keep employees happy while balancing the needs of the workplace? Annual leave requests Most employees are likely to request time off during the winter months to spend time with family and friends, especially where this aligns with school holiday periods, religious festivals and national bank holidays ...
The question of liability for the work environment is increasingly in focus as are the demands on those parties who are responsible for knowing what applies and for taking action in accordance with these demands. Below, we address two aspects of the work environment issue and the importance of both investigating and being aware of the applicable provisions. I ...
According to the Equal Opportunities Commission, 52% of men and 48% of women say they want to work more flexibly and 6.5 million people in the UK could be using their skills more fully if greater flexible working was available. The suggestion is that rigid models of work are driving highly qualified workers into jobs below their skill level in order for them to have a life outside of work ...
In these strange new days of back-to-back virtual meetings, working from home offices, home-schooling children, and social distancing from the grocery store, not to mention from most human beings—who is to say that anyone actually will read these pearls of wisdom from my sweet, dearly departed mother ...
In these strange new days of back-to-back vir-tual meetings, working from home offices, home-schooling children, and social distancing from the grocery store, not to mention from most human beings—who is to say that anyone actually will read these pearls of wisdom from my sweet, dearly departed mother ...
It is International Women's Day today, March 8 – an opportunity to bring the challenges women face in the workplace to the fore. Laws to protect women being discriminated against in the workplace because of their "family status" have existed for some time. What has been less clear is what the legal definition of "family status" means. Even at the highest court level, it's unclear as there have been few decisions to help define the term ...
SyCipLaw Partner Leslie C. Dy participated in the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law 2016: Getting to Equal. The 2016 edition, the fourth in the series, continues to cover and collect data about legal restrictions on women’s entrepreneurship and employment. The series aims to inform policy discussions and promote research on linkages between the law and women’s economic opportunities ...
Employment law specialist and Karanović & Nikolić's Senior Associate, Jelena Danilović, has contributed to the newest edition of Women, Business and the Law 2016 – Getting Equal, issued by the World Bank Group.This report is the fourth in a biennial series of reports that provide objective measures of legal and regulatory barriers to women's entrepreneurship and employment ...
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In March, the European Commission recommended that member states introduce temporary restrictions on travel to the European Union (through 15 May 2020). The vast majority of European countries coordinate border control measures at the EU level. States are again fencing their territories, suspending the free movement of persons also between regions ...
