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NEWS IN BRIEF
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Changes effective from1st October 2009
National Minimum Wage (NMW)
The NMW for eligible workers will increase to £5.80 an hour for workers aged 22 and above and to £4.83 an hour to workers aged 18-21.
The rate for those under the age of 18 but above compulsory school age will go up to £3.57 an hour.
Cost of redundancy
The limit on a week's pay for calculating statutory redundancy payments, and tribunal awards that use a week's pay as the basis for calculation, will increase from £350 to £380.
Tips, service charges and the NMW
Bars, restaurants and hotels will no longer be able to count service charges, tips, gratuities and cover charges paid to a worker through the employer's payroll as part of the NMW
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Bank Holidays:
The UK has eight permanent bank holidays per year: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday,Early May,Spring Bank Holiday, Late Summer, Christmas Day andBoxing Day.
But how much do you as an employer know about employment law concerning bank holidays?
Here are five things you really need to know:
- There is no statutory right for employees to take bank holidays off work. Any right to time off depends on the terms of the employment contract.
- When an employee works on a bank holiday, there is no statutory right to extra pay – for example time and a half or double time. Any right to extra pay depends on the terms of the contract of employment.
- The best practice and safest approach to part-time employees is to give a pro rated allowance of paid bank holidays, irrespective of whether or not they normally work on the days on which bank holidays fall.
- Where a bank holiday is aligned to a Christian festival such as Easter, there is no requirement to allow additional time off for employees who practise religions other than Christianity. Doing so would result in more favourable treatment for certain religious groups, and amount to unlawful direct discrimination.
- Contractual holiday entitlement of “statutory entitlement plus bank holidays” no longer denotes 20 days’ leave plus eight bank holidays. Following the increase in statutory minimum leave from four to 5.6 weeks, this will grant 28 days’ holiday with eight bank holidays on top. Check your employment contracts to determine if this is an issue.
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Scrap default retirement at 65 says Commons committee
A regulation in the Equality Bill upholding the default retirement age of 65 should be removed, say the work and pensions committee.
The Commons committee has published a report on the Bill which said regulation 30 - which upholds employers' right to compulsorily retire workers when they turn 65 - was not in keeping with the government's aims to raise the retirement age to tackle pension deficits.
The report said: "In light of the judgment by the European Court of Justice, we recommend that the government removes regulation 30, which permits employers to continue to compulsorily retire employees at the age of 65.
"This regulation contradicts the government's wider social policy and labour market objectives to raise the average retirement age and allow people to continue to work and save for their retirement."
Source: Personnel Today
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