News - 7-13 July 2023

First this week we look at recent statistics which show trade union membership is down whilst strike days have increased.(1)  Moving on we look at a new employment trend affectionately called ‘quiet quitting & the menopause.’(2) The Irish News reports on stagnation in Ulster’s employment laws due to the gridlock in Stormont, caused by the Unionist intransigence to form a working executive.(3) The former UK Environment Secretary who backed Brexit in 2016 has admitted that the UK economy needs more EU workers, oh the irony.(4)  City AM reports on the increasing levels of redundancies and the fears of an imminent recession.(5) UNISON has accused the care sector of wilfully abusing tens of thousands of migrant workers.(6)  The NHS ‘Long Term Workforce Plan 2023’ has been released explaining hoe the government will recruit, train and re-train to try to fill the current 110,000 nursing vacancies. Good Luck with that one.(7)  Moving on to caselaw, the EAT has ruled that a dismissal that was conducted without meeting the employee, was not automatically unfair.(8)  

Finally we end with a report by the TUC which has discovered that approximately 7 in 10 disabled workers earn less than £15 per hour. This says much of the moral integrity of many employers even in the face of equality legislation.(9)