News 25 - 31 March 2022

Hello and welcome to this week’s news.

We have the usual scattering of stories on offer but the lead feature this week is the fiasco at P&O Ferries, who announced 800 redundancies on 17 March 2022, Happy St Patrick’s Day?  Since the announcement the consensus of opinion is that P&O’s ‘methods’ (or complete lack of) makes the process unlawful.  In fact, P&O has now admitted this.(1)   The TUC has run a number of articles on the subject, ranging from calls to remove ferry services from the private sector(2)   to a more detailed article on the way forward.(3)   In the midst of this sea mist, Grant Schapps wobbled into view, flexing his ministerial muscle(s),(4)   following a statement from P&O’s that they could potentially re-hire staff on the ‘minimum wage’.(5)   In a rare moment of accidental overlap, the TUC’s position mirrored this.(6)   There will certainly be more on this before the matter is settled.

In other news, Shoosmiths bring us the important changes for April 2022.(7)   Denton’s looks at the implications of the UK government’s recent ratification of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention on Violence and Harassment.(8)  At the same time the government has U-turned on its commitment to make ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory, presumably they read the statistics before they took this decision.(9) 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) has ordered a Swiss Bank to give up documents to Guardian News & Media Group in an unfair dismissal case.(10)   Although it will come as no surprise to women, businesses are failing to deal with menopause in the workplace according to a survey of HR leaders.(11)  Considering the same survey City A.M. highlights that only 13% of companies have any policies in place.(12)   As COVID restrictions are lifted there will almost certainly be an increase in the number of staff attending work whilst positive, we look at whether employees can refuse to attend the workplace on the basis it is unsafe for them.(13)    

In another EAT ruling, issues of ‘detriment’ and ‘causation’ were scrutinised when consider a claim for victimisation.(14)