News - 03 - 07 March 2023

We start this weeks news with a celebration of International Women’s Day. Our first article looks at the need for greater action over simple rhetoric.(1) Next we have the barely surprising admission by Kemi Badenoch that the government’s decision to reject ‘menopause leave’ was in part due to it being too much of a ‘leftwing perspective.’(2) If that’s not a fear of a socialist period in government I don’t know what is? The TUC highlight why the trade union struggle has to be a ‘feminist one.’(3)    

Moving on, P&O workers are once more in fear of a repeat of the mass redundancies announced only a year ago when 800 workers lost their jobs.(4) UK firms back health & safety rules in the face of the Retained EU Law Bill.(5) As the ‘cost of living crisis’ worsens we have a report that more employees are stealing from their workplaces.(6) Psychology Today has reported that remote working practices have actually helped disabled employees to remain in employment.(7) Plans are afoot within government to give agency workers ‘more predictable working patterns.’(8) We have some interesting caselaw from the EAT which overturned an earlier ET decision which in effect forced an employee to work a potentially ‘discriminatory’ working pattern after losing a flexible working appeal.(9) We conclude with an article from the TUC which demonstrates how the ‘Strikes’ Bill, currently in the House of Lords, will disproportionately affect BME workers.(10)