The New Employment Act

The Employment Act 2002 will be phased in over the coming year in stages. By April 2003 many aspects of the act will be in place.

On October 1st 2002 regulations came in force granting equality to fixed term employees in relation to their terms and conditions of employment. This includes pay, pensions other benefits and also the fact that fixed term employees can have a right to statutory redundancy pay.

From mid 2003 there will be minimum compulsory procedures covering disciplinary, dismissal and grievances. These procedures must be followed before you take disciplinary procedures, grievance or dismissal action. Employees also have to adhere to this minimum grievance procedure before tribunal proceedings can be brought.

Regardless of the size of the employer every employee’s contract will require these procedures to be implied. There are three steps to these new procedures.

1. The employer or employee is required to give a written statement to the other party containing details of the disciplinary/grievance/dismissal,
2. Following a meeting the employer must inform the employee of the outcome and their right to appeal.
3. An appeal meeting following, which the employee must be notified of the final outcome. For this appeal meeting the employee is entitled to be accompanied by a representative, either a colleague or trade union representative.

It is not enough to simply follow the minimum statutory procedure alone, dismissal could still be considered unfair, and however failure to follow the procedure could result in a dismissal automatically being unfair. If either an employer or employee does not adhere to these rules, an employment tribunal can increase or decrease any compensation award by between 10 and 50%.

A new penalty is introduced of up to 4 weeks’ pay where an employer has failed to issue an employee with statutory particulars of their employment. This claim can be made at the same time as another employment claim.

For parents whose expected week of childbirth begins on or after April 2003 changes apply, regardless of the length of service, ordinary maternity leave will increase to 26 weeks along with statutory maternity pay. Additional maternity leave will be available for a further 26 weeks. This is available for women who have 26 weeks service by the 15th week of the expected week of childbirth. Fathers will be also able to take two weeks’ paid paternity leave after the birth of the child. This also applies to adoptive parents.

Employees who believe that they are paid less than their colleagues will be entitled to serve an equal pay questionnaire on their employers. This is done before any equal pay proceedings take place. This questionnaire is required to obtain important information regarding their pay and benefits and those of their colleagues.

It is a good idea therefore, for employers to keep an eye on and review where necessary their employment policies.

Further information can be obtained from Roslyn’s (payroll department) or on http://www.hmso.gov.uk/.