Last month, 54 employees of a Singapore Government-linked company, Surbana Jurong, were terminated from employment. A local newspaper, Today, reported that the Group Chief Executive of Surbana had sent a firm-wide email explaining the firm’s decision to terminate these employees and labelling them as poor performers who could not be allowed to drag down the rest of the organization.
In the course of the year, it will be interesting to see how the Government of Québec will deal with pay equity matters. In an important decision issued last October, the Québec Court of Appeal declared that several sections of the Pay Equity Act were unconstitutional. More specifically, it struck down the ’09 provisions dealing
2017 has started with the issuance of important rulings from the Constitutional Court, regarding special protection of stability for: (i) employees close to retirement, and (ii) for the mates of women who are unemployed and expecting a child. Also, at the beginning of the year the Congress issued new provisions on maternity leave. Finally, we
On January 30, 2017, a Board of Inquiry, formed as part of the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia, issued its decision in Skinner v. Board of Trustees of the Canadian Elevator Industry Welfare Trust Fund, which found that the denial of an employee’s request for coverage of medical marijuana under a health benefit plan
In France, the issue of religious behavior in the workplace is extremely sensitive.
The principle under French employment law is that while public sector employers are required to enforce a policy of strict neutrality, in private sector companies, a balance must be maintained between the principle of secularism and the prohibition of discrimination based on
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A significant amount of new employment legislation is expected or is already in place for 2017. Key changes will be in the hiring of temporary workers through an agency (referred to as “personnel leasing” in Germany), employee protection and equal treatment.
Reform of laws regarding personnel leasing
One of the main developments in 2017 will
Seeking legal advice not only allows an employer to ensure that they are conducting a proper accident investigation, but will also be critical in preserving legal privilege – meaning a document is protected as confidential in a legal process and shielded from adverse parties.
On May 9, 2016 the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta
A recent decision of the District Court of Western Australia provides some positive news for employers facing a workers’ compensation claim for a stress-related injury caused by disciplinary action.
At first instance in Woodside Energy v Kieronski [2016] WADC 144 the arbitrator held that Ms Kieronski was entitled to compensation for a psychiatric condition caused by stress from being stood down pending an investigation into allegations of serious misconduct. Woodside successfully appealed this decision to the District Court.
The case turned on the interpretation and application of an important carve-out that exists in other jurisdictions across Australia.[1] The carve-out places the onus on employees to demonstrate that their psychiatric injury did not result from “reasonable management action”.
In Western Australia, the carve-out is found in the definition of ‘injury’ in section 5(1) when read with section 5(4) of the Workers’ Compensation and Injury Management Act 1981. It applies when an employer dismisses, retrenches, demotes, redeploys or disciplines an employee. Provided the disciplinary process is not “unreasonable and harsh”, employers will not be required to compensate employees for stress-related conditions that an employee develops as a result.
Much attention was focused recently on President Obama’s decision, in the final days of his presidency, on commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who provided certain classified information to WikiLeaks. In France, new legislation has recently been passed and implemented harmonizing the protection of whistleblowing employees (https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid=4BBFD240827AF0FD9A6340FF254E6F1B.tpdila21v_3?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000033558528&categorieLien=id).
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