Employment law update

Whenever a General Election is near, you can be sure that political mileage attempts are often made in the areas of employment and particularly employment law. The results of the election will have a big determining factor as to what changes we can expect but, looking beyond the current rhetoric, the most interesting employment law changes that we can expect this year is the formal roll out of the shared parental leave legislation.  Employers should be braced for these imminent changes and as there has been plenty of lead time, but inevitably any changes can lead to confusion both on the part of individuals not quite understanding their rights as well as how best to approach requests by employers.

Looking slightly further ahead, it will be interesting to watch a couple of case law developments. The new fee systems for ET’s themselves could be affected by a current case going through (although Unison’s second appeal was turned down, a further challenge is expected) and with the ECJ’s ruling last year on obesity, with the judgement that obesity can fall under disability under the equal treatment directive, it is not only our changing political landscape but as always, that of the European courts which could have a dramatic effect on our future employment law amendments.