Graphite Workshops

• Implications of Employment Law – one day workshop, 6th March 2007.
• Discipline and Grievance – one day workshop, 7th March 2007.
• Developing an Employee Handbook – one day workshop, 28th March 2007.
• Investigator Training – Two Day workshop, 3rd and 4th April 2007.
• Train the Support Contact Person – one day workshop, 24th April 2007.
• Selection Interviewing Skills – one day workshop, 25th April 2007.

Please note that places are limited on all workshops. For further information, or to make a booking, please contact Fran on 01 – 6627099 or info@graphitehrm.com

Employment Law Update

• Increased Maternity and Adoptive leave entitlement from 1st March 2007
• New Era for Workers Rights announced by Minister

Lessons from Case Law

• Ryanair - Unfair Dismissal emphasises the importance of fair procedures and natural justice

Practical Steps

• New Employment Permit Arrangements
• Disciplinary Process Checklist
  

Graphite Consultation Queries

• Foreign Nationals – what is the list of countries for which employees do not require employment permits to work in Ireland?

Increased Maternity and Adoptive leave entitlement from 1st March 2007

The new maternity leave and adoptive leave entitlements come into effect from
1st March 2007.

The 22-week period of maternity leave will increase to a 26-week period for employees going on normal maternity leave on or after 1st March 2007, and the 12-week additional maternity leave will increase to up to 16-weeks for employees going on additional maternity leave on or after 1st March 2007.

The 20-week period of adoptive leave will increase to a 24-week period for employees going on normal adoptive leave on or after 1st March 2007, and the 12-week additional adoptive leave will increase to up to 16-weeks for employees going on additional adoptive leave on or after 1st March 2007.

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New Era for Workers Rights announced by Minister

Labour Inspectors

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, TD, announced that the number of Labour Inspectors will increase significantly and that they will be located in regional centres across the country.

Speaking at a news conference earlier this month , the Minister said that the opening of regional offices for Labour Inspectors is an important move to ensure that workers in every county have their rights protected. He said, “At present we are in the process of increasing the number of inspectors by 200% to 90, as set out in 'Towards 2016’. The locations and the number of inspectors and support staff assigned will be on the basis of population, work force and gateways identified in the National Spatial Strategy.” The head office for the new National Employment Rights Authority (NERA) will be in Carlow.

Preparation of Key Employment Rights Legislation

The Minister confirmed that substantial progress has been made in advancing the commitments regarding employment rights entered into under the ten year social partnership agreement, ‘Towards 2016’.

He said, "The first Bill to give effect to our employment rights commitments is the 'Protection of Employment (Exceptional Collective Redundancies) Bill 2007'. This Bill provides for the establishment of a Redundancy Panel, drawn from the social partners, which can request the Minister to refer cases of dismissals to the Labour Court for an opinion as to whether or not they are genuine redundancies." Based on that opinion the Minister may refuse to pay a redundancy rebate.

The purpose of this will be to allow the Minister to intervene with regard to the redundancy payment rebate in cases where the redundancies are not deemed legitimate.

There are other provisions in the Bill including abolishing the upper age limit of 66 for qualifying for statutory redundancy.

Also, as regards protecting employees in the home, the Minister said that the Labour Relations Commission is close to finalising the Code of Practice foreseen in ‘Towards 2016’ and would hope to be in a position to submit the Code to the Minister shortly.

Graphite will continue to keep you informed of these and other developments as further details emerge.

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Ryanair – Unfair Dismissal emphasises the importance of fair procedures and natural justice

The Employment Appeals Tribunal has found that a Ryanair employee was unfairly dismissed by reason of Ryanair’s failure to comply with the principles of fair procedure and natural justice in their investigation of complaints against her. The EAT ordered that the staff member be re-engaged, despite the fact that neither party sought that particular remedy.

One of the most interesting aspects of this case was the emphasis placed by the Tribunal Chairperson on the fact that the claimant had not received copies of the statements containing the allegations against her, and when they were received the names of witnesses were blanked out; as a result the claimant did not have the opportunity to cross-examine her accusers. The Chairperson determined that this constituted a failure to comply with the principles of fair procedures and natural justice and went on to quote a number of cases which confirm this contention. In light of this, employers may have to incorporate the right to cross-examine into their investigation procedures, such as Disciplinary Procedures and Bullying/Harassment procedures.

Read the full details of this interesting case and its implications on our web site.

Article Location: Login to the Client Zone > Click Termination of Employment and select article under Lessons from Case Law.

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New Employment Permit Arrangements

New economic migration and employment permit arrangements for workers outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) were announced in January by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin. These came into operation on 1st February 2007.

The four categories of permit that were introduced are:

• Green Card
• Work permit
• Spousal/Dependant permit
• Intra-company transfer permit

The key details are outlined in this article, along with the particular provisions with regard to employing Bulgarian and Romanian nationals.

Article Location: Login to the Client Zone > Click Recruitment and select article from under Practical Steps.

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Disciplinary Process Checklist

As we have seen in the Ryanair article on the recent unfair dismissal case, fair procedures and natural justice are key components of the disciplinary process.

When an allegation of misconduct or other breach of the organisation’s policies or procedures is made against an employee, the employer will often need to carry out some degree of investigation before holding a disciplinary hearing. Once the facts have been established as much as possible, a disciplinary hearing, where appropriate, will be held with the employee in question. Graphite has developed a checklist to assist employers in ensuring that they run the process in such a way as to meet the requirements of fairness and natural justice.

Article Location: Login to the Client Zone > Click Discipline and Grievance, and select article under Practical Steps.

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For Premium and Premium Plus customers, Graphite provides a HR Consultation Service. As part of our regular monthly review in HR e-ssentials, Graphite HRM provides you with an insight into the type of queries we get through this consultation service.

Question: Foreign Nationals – what is the list of countries for which employees do not require employment permits to work in Ireland?

Answer:

Employees from the following countries do not require permits to work in Ireland:

Member States of the European Union (EU)

• Austria,
• Belgium,
• Cyprus,
• Czech Republic,
• Denmark,
• Estonia,
• Finland,
• France,
• Germany,
• Greece,
• Hungary,
• Italy,
• Latvia,
• Lithuania,
• Luxembourg,
• Malta,
• Netherlands,
• Poland,
• Portugal,
• Slovak Republic,
• Slovenia,
• Spain,
• Sweden,
• United Kingdom.

Three countries in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which are members of the European Economic Area (EEA)

• Iceland,
• Liechtenstein,
• Norway.

Also

• Switzerland
  

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