Another wave of COVID-19 has spread all over Thailand and is raising understandable concerns and generating uncertainty among the business community. With our series of infographics, we take this opportunity to guide you on the key measures and best practices to help you mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on your business. Today, we highlight 4 practical steps with noteworthy considerations when implementing workforce restructuring options available to employers in Thailand ...
With COVID-19 vaccines fully available in the United States, employers are approaching work-from-home requests differently than they were a year ago. Dinsmore labor and employment attorneys Ashley Pack, Crystal Spivey Wildeman and Aly St. Pierre wrote about the topic in Best Lawyers: The Litigation Issue. An excerpt is below. Employers are facing legal uncertainty in the form of whether to accommodate continued remote-work requests ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals have increasingly experienced a shortage of beds and medical staff to take care of patients, telepharmacy has emerged as one of the most effective ways to reduce the number of people visiting not only the hospitals themselves but also pharmacies and health clinics. Telepharmacy is the provision of pharmaceutical care to patients remotely by registered pharmacists and pharmacies using telecommunications ...
Important new legislative changes impacting federally regulated employers will come into effect in 2021: the Pay Equity Act and a minimum wage requirement. Details on both these measures and how that will affect employers are examined below. Pay Equity Act The federal Pay Equity Act comes into effect on August 31, 2021. The Act applies to federally regulated employers who have 10 or more employees ...
On 20 August 2021, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (“PIPL”) was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and will become effective on 1 November 2021. Comprising 8 chapters and 74 articles, PIPL lays down a clearer yet stricter regulatory framework for the protection of personal information ...
Health and safety issues in the agricultural and rural sector are a matter of considerable concern. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging farmers to make safety a priority to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities in the sector. This recent campaign was prompted by four fatalities over a fortnight, coming only weeks after Farm Safety Week ...
Telemedicine and telehealth are newer and ever-expanding components of health care.[1] There are many viable arrangements for companies who wish to engage in telemedicine and/or telehealth and these arrangements can offer many benefits to the patients they serve. However, companies and licensed individuals who provide services should be careful to understand the state and federal regulatory framework under which they operate ...
We have recently assisted a well known fashion retailer in successfully defending an unlawful deduction from wages claim in relation to furlough payments received by the employee. This is an important decision, not only for our client, but also other employers who have made use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (“the Scheme”). Background The employee’s contract of employment stated the employee had a contractual entitlement to a minimum of 20 hours per week ...
On Aug. 13, 2021, OSHA released updated guidance on mitigating and preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. The new guidance updates OSHA’s recommendations for fully vaccinated employees and for schools, and it supplements certain industry-specific guidance ...
On 10 August 2021, the South African Minister of Employment and Labour gazetted Regulations which established a temporary financial relief scheme for workers who have lost income due to the partial or full closure of workplaces destroyed, damaged, looted or otherwise affected by the recent unrest. The scheme is a welcome intervention in circumstances where workers are unable to work due to the looting or riots and are not entitled to remuneration ...
Update: On July 28, 2021, an Interim Final Rule on COVID-19 Revenue Reduction Score, Direct Borrower Forgiveness Process, and Appeals Deferment was posted. That Interim Final Rule conforms the applicable PPP rules to provide that a timely appeal by the PPP borrower of a final SBA loan review decision extends the deferment period of the PPP loan until the Office of Hearings and Appeals’ decision becomes final. See below: “Consequences of an Appeal ...
Superintendence Resolution Nº 000170-2021-MIGRACIONES, published last August 6, provides for the repeal of Superintendence Resolution Nº 000104-2020-MIGRACIONES (hereinafter, Resolution 104) and provides the following measures: Extension of term.-The term of temporary or resident migratory statuses granted from March 16, 2020, which expired during the validity of Resolution 104, is extended until the entry into force of this resolution ...
A recent case reminds us of the continuing reality that women, because of their childcare responsibilities, are less likely to be able to accommodate certain working patterns than men and that failing to take this into account could be discriminatory. The case of Dobson v North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust involved a claim of indirect sex discrimination ...
Cryptocurrency, for most of us at least, has been hidden behind a veil of incomprehensible idiom for most of its lifespan. However, it has the potential to revolutionise the way we pay, borrow and lend, maybe sooner rather than later. Like quantum computing and artificial intelligence, we are told they’re set to change the world but few of us understand how that might actually work or what their impact might be ...
Thanks to the pandemic ‘working from home’ is a phrase we are all used to hearing. With the lifting of restrictions, however, ‘hybrid working’ is set to take its place. We consider the benefits of having a hybrid working policy and what to include in it ...
Among the other challenges facing employers in the COVID-19 pandemic is the increasing prevalence of “long COVID”. Although not much is known about long COVID at this time, there are some proactive measures that employers can take to identify and manage it in the workplace. At present, there is no official medical definition of long COVID. What we do know is that some people experience symptoms that last for weeks or months after they have contracted COVID-19 ...
When can an employer in the private sector interfere with a disciplinary sanction imposed by a chairperson of a disciplinary hearing, in circumstances where the employer’s disciplinary code and procedure make no provision for such interference? In the recent decision in Anglo American Platinum (Ltd) v Edwin Andriaan Beyers, the Labour Appeal Court (“LAC”) was confronted with this question ...
To avoid a complicated and lengthy disciplinary proceeding, employers might consider a mutual separation agreement, to terminate an employee’s employment and pay them a sum of money. In the case of Balsdon v Valley Macadamias Group (Pty) Ltd, the Labour Court had to decide whether it could make a mutual separation agreement a court order in terms of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (“LRA”) ...
Can an employer require its employees to speak a specific language or to be of a specific nationality as an inherent requirement of the job? Can an employee be dismissed for operational requirements if the employee is unable to speak that language or is not of a specific nationality? Would this be automatically unfair on the basis of unfair discrimination? This issue, along with several other claims, was what the Labour Appeal Court (“LAC”) had to decide in the matter of
A recent Constitutional Court judgment is an important reminder to employers that employees must be granted a fair opportunity to ventilate their case at a disciplinary hearing. Failure to do so could result in an award for compensation against the employer, even when the misconduct was of a very serious nature and the employer was justified in dismissing the employee ...
In our third Post Pandemic webinar, our panel discussed the topic of people in the context of Operational Resilience (OR). Shoosmiths’ Partner Sam Tyfield spoke to colleagues Yvonne Oakenfull (Learning & Development Manager), Kevin McCavish (Partner and Head of Shoosmiths’ London Employment team) and Karen Mortenson (Principal Associate in our London Employment team) ...
With employers reopening fully and employees returning to the workplace from the pandemic, there has been a steady flow of challenges -- both legal filings and political and public opposition -- by individuals opposing mandatory requirements from employers and institutions to be vaccinated in order to return to work or school, subject to certain legal requirements under the ADA and valid religious objections ...
Not yet in the driver’s seat but hungry for change, millennials are lobbying to shape the way the companies are run. What do North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin, United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They are all captains in their fields. And they are all millennials ...
Starting around October 26, 2020, the Small Business Administrations (the “SBA”) asked Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) lenders to provide certain questionnaires to PPP borrowers with loans of $2 million or greater. There are two questionnaire forms on the Treasury: Form 3509 for for-profit borrowers and Form 3510 for non-profit borrowers ...
