News 30 June - 7 July 2022

Hello and welcome to this week’s news. 

Our first story this week is a look at instant messaging services in the workplace.(1)   Next we look at the changes to the issuing of ‘fit notes’ as more healthcare workers are now able to issue these.(2)    

The TUC report that shifting to a greener economy could create 42,000 jobs.(3)   We’ll conclude this week’s brief encounter with some very relevant case law.  The first is COVID related and found that an employees dismissal for refusing to return to work due to their belief that the workplace wasn’t safe constituted a fair dismissal.(4)   

But the judgment of the week is the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Basfar v Wong 2022 UKSC20 which 2 days ago ruled against a diplomat in a ‘modern slavery’ case arguing that the employees job amounted to ‘domestic servitude'.(5)