Employment law in 5: 5 developments to read for July in less than 5 minutes

COVID-19, geopolitical developments, inflation, supply chain challenges, and economic uncertainty continue to challenge businesses and disrupt ways of working as we head into the second half of 2022. Looking ahead, social and political polarization may also continue to challenge US employers. Legal and regulatory compliance remains burdensome as states and localities take on issues ranging from pay transparency, harassment and discrimination to paid leave, technology, and post-employment restrictive covenants. In this update to our 2022 top trends for US employers, we identify the latest developments and offer our predictions for the second half of the year.

EU Member States have until 1 August 2022 to implement the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive and until 2 August 2022 to implement the Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers Directive. The first of these Directives broadens obligations to inform workers of their working conditions and creates new minimum standards to ensure that all workers, including those on atypical contracts, benefit from transparency and predictability as regards their working conditions. The second Directive impacts entitlements to paternity leave, parental leave, carers’ leave and flexible working rights. As at the end of July 2022, transposition progress is varied across the Member States and many will not meet the early August deadlines. Implementation activity has been ramping up recently, however, and this month we have reported on developments in family leave in Denmark and Ireland and measures to implement the Working Conditions Directive in both Italy and Germany.

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This month has seen a flurry of developments in relation to rights to time off work which, although perhaps mundane, are important for employers to keep abreast of so that policies and procedures remain fully up to date. In Ireland the Sick Leave Act has been signed into law providing employees with at least 13 weeks’ service with statutory entitlement to sick pay, initially for three days per year. Ireland has also implemented an increase in Parent’s Leave and Benefit with the amount extended from 5 to 7 weeks. In Denmark a new Act on Maternity/Paternity Leave will entitle parents of multiple-birth children (other than twins) to an additional 26 weeks of leave from January 2023. From January 2024, solo parents will be able to transfer leave to a close family member and legal parents to transfer leave to a child’s social parents. More imminently, from 2 August 2022, the rules on absence for special family reasons will be amended to enable leave to be taken by care givers. Finally, in the UK, the holiday pay saga continues with a recent Supreme Court decision finding that the holiday entitlement of workers who work only part of the year, but are engaged on a permanent contract throughout the year, must be calculated using the average hours worked over the previous 52 weeks, disregarding any weeks not worked. This decision makes it risky for employers to continue the routine practice of calculating holiday pay for part-year workers using 12.07% of hours worked.