Australia: Establishing an Australian Modern Slavery Act and its impact on Australian Business

Australia’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (‘Committee’) has handed down its final report in its inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia. The inquiry included consideration of the Australian Government’s announcement in August 2017 that it would adopt the Committee’s in principle recommendation in the interim report to introduce … Read more

Australia: Victoria – Labour Hire Licensing Scheme introduced

Following an inquiry into work arrangements in the labour hire industry, the Victorian Government has recently introduced the Labour Hire Licensing Bill 2017 (Bill). The Bill establishes a licensing scheme for labour hire providers and creates civil and criminal offences for breaches of the scheme. The stated object of the Bill is to prevent vulnerable … Read more

Australia: Whistleblower protection regime

On 7 December 2017, the Australian Government took a further step towards whistleblower reform by introducing the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017 into the Senate (‘Whistleblower Bill’). The Whistleblower Bill seeks to consolidate whistleblower protections in the corporate, financial and credit sectors into a single regime under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) … Read more

UK: proposed reforms to fitness for work, statutory sick pay and mental health protections

An independent review of mental health at work, commissioned by the Prime Minister, has been published. The Stevenson/Farmer review calls on employers to adopt six mental health core standards covering mental health at work plans, employee awareness and open communication, healthy work life balance, effective people management, and monitoring of mental health and wellbeing.  Further … Read more

UK: dismissal for failure to produce right to work documents could be unfair

The EAT decision in Baker v Abellio London UK serves as a reminder that it is not a statutory requirement for an employer to obtain right to work documents from its employees (the production of such documents only provides a defence to employers should they engage an illegal worker), and therefore dismissal of an employee … Read more

UK: duty not to mislead employee as to reason for dismissal

In Rawlinson v Brightside Group, the EAT held that the duty of trust and confidence includes an obligation on an employer not to deliberately mislead an employee as to the real reason for dismissal.  In that case, the employer decided to dismiss an in house legal counsel due to his poor performance; rather than go … Read more