Welcome to the March edition of Up to Date. Read on for a roundup of the latest news and developments in relation to employment and immigration.

Do pregnant workers have special protection in collective redundancy situations?

In Porras Guisado v Bankia SA and others the ECJ considered the dismissal of a pregnant worker in line with the provisions in the Collective Redundancies Directive and the Pregnant Workers Directive. In an employer-friendly decision, the ECJ concluded that a collective redundancy situation will be an exceptional case which can be used to justify the dismissal of a pregnant worker.  Furthermore, pregnant workers are not entitled to priority over other workers when it comes to retention or redeployment.

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Employee's failure to disclose material information to their employer justified summary dismissal

The Supreme Court’s decision in Reilly v Sandwell is an interesting exploration of when an employee’s failure to disclose material information to their employers will warrant dismissal.  It is also significant for the comments made by Lady Hale and Lord Wilson regarding the correctness of the test in British Home Stores Ltd v Burchell [1980] ICR 303 (the Burchell Test), which affords employers significant latitude in a misconduct dismissal (Reilly v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, SC).

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Disability discrimination: pressure to work long hours can be a provision, criterion or practice

The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision that an employer's expectation that an employee would work long hours could amount to a provision, criterion or practice (PCP) which puts disabled persons at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled persons.  In such cases, the employer's duty to make reasonable adjustments would be triggered.  A failure to make such adjustments would give rise to a disability discrimination claim (United First Research Partners v Carreras).

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Are you ready? Employment law changes coming into force in April 2018

With the focus on big employment law issues such as gender pay gap reporting, the Taylor Review reforms and the impact of Brexit, it's easy to forget that the employment law wheel keeps on turning.  April brings with it a raft of employment law-related changes for employers to note.  Alongside the usual annual uprating of statutory payments, changes will come into force affecting pensions, salary sacrifice arrangements and the taxation of termination payments. We round up the key changes in our at-a-glance table.

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Recent developments in Scotland's employment law landscape

The start of 2018 has seen a few changes and proposals relevant to Scotland's employment landscape.  In this round-up piece, we look at three key developments that employers need to know about: (i) the Fair Work Charter proposal to protect Scottish workers during adverse weather conditions; (ii) a report by the Scottish Affairs Commons Select Committee on the rights of employees and workers; and (iii) the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018.

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Immigration update: a step closer to Brexit

After months of crystal ball gazing as to what any immigration regime will look like for EEA migrants working in the UK post-Brexit, the transition deal agreed in principle by the UK Government and EU leaders has helped to lift some of the fog that surrounds this issue.  Here, we explain what is now known, when we can expect more detail and what actions employers should be taking now.

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