Paul Scholey: Head of Employment Rights Team, Morrish Solicitors

15 January 2016

By Paul Scholey, Head of Employment Rights Team, Morrish Solicitors

In Bărbulescu v Romania, the European Court of Human Rights has rejected an employee’s claim that his firm infringed his right to privacy (under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) by intercepting Instant Messages sent on a work computer.

Reported as another sort of “snooper’s charter” the outcome of the case is not altogether surprising, certainly from the perspective of the English legal system’s approach to these things.

Dave Lewis: Professor of Employment Law, Middlesex University

14 January 2016

Dave Lewis, Professor of Employment Law, Middlesex University

If you became aware of wrongdoing within your workplace, who would you go to? Most would go to their line managers, and normally this is the best thing to do; but what if your line manager does nothing? And what if you don't trust them, or you believe they may even be complicit in the issue you wish to report? At this stage, many people's intuition would be to disclose the matter to their trade union rep, but if doing so is not part of the workplace's whistleblowing procedure, then they are not protected by the Employment Rights Act 1996 and could be dismissed.

11 January 2016

By John Hendy QC and Professor Keith Ewing, Chair and President of the IER

Today marks the House of Lords coming to grips with the government’s Trade Union Bill. The trade unions are campaigning to ‘Kill the Bill’ just as they did with the Conservatives’ Industrial Relations Bill 35 years ago, when Ted Heath was Prime Minister.

20 November 2015

By Andrew Moretta, World of Work Project Researcher, Institute of Employment Rights

IER readers will recall that in July 2015 the government released three consultation documents to accompany the Trade Union Bill. In November the Government published its first response to those consultations, starting with the intimidation of non-striking workers. Below, is a brief blog on that response by the expert who drafted IER’s submission to the consultation.

16 November 2015

By Phil James

New HSE statistics covering the year 2014-15 report a rise in work-related fatal injuries, suggest that national health and safety performance may be stagnating and illustrate how enforcement action by local authority inspectors is falling dramatically.

6 November 2015

By Tonia Novitz and Michael Ford, Professors of labour law at Bristol University

This post first appeared on October 12, 2015 on the policybristol website. It analysis the Bill, comments on its likely conflict with international law and provides links to useful documents. Since publication of this article, the Bill has passed through its Committee Stage and is due back in the Commons in its amended form for its third reading on 10th November 2015. The Government has also published its response to comments received to its consultation paper entitled Tackling Intimidation of Non-Striking Workers. IER will post further analysis of both developments in due course.