Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Government Announces Mobile Phone Driving Ban
Using a hand-held mobile while driving is to be banned in a long-awaited clamp down on phone use in cars. The new offence, it was announced this morning, will take effect from 1 December 2003 with offenders facing fines ranging from £30 to £1,000 if the case goes to court.
Those caught breaking the ban would also get three penalty points on their driving licences for each offence.
Under current laws motorists can only be prosecuted for using mobiles if they fail to keep proper control of their vehicle. The Government announced it was considering the law change last August and has carried out a public consultation on its proposals, which, it said, demonstrated overwhelming support for a ban.
The planned new law will have to be approved by Parliament and be added to the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations.
In the new law the definition of driving includes using a phone while the car is stationary with the engine running. Hands-free mobile phones are not included in the law because the Government concluded, a ban would be difficult to enforce.
Do you have a policy on mobile phone use in cars? Get the Driving at Work Policy and Management Guide, Version 1.0 (ISBN 1-900648-29-6, £74.99), available by calling 0870 777 8881 or in MS Word format as an electronic download.
above: The new offence will take effect from 1 December 2003.
Are Homosexuals protected by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975?
The House of Lords has handed down its decision in the appeal cases of MacDonald v Advocate General, (Scotland) and Pearce v Mayfield School, [2003].
The House of Lords resolved the two competing arguments as to whether homosexuals fall within the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) 1975.
Previously, in Pearce v Mayfield School it was ruled that, if the abuse inflicted on the applicant by the pupils amounted to discrimination on the ground of her sexual orientation, not her sex, it fell outside the ambit of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
In the new ruling there were five distinct judgments, the five Law Lords were unanimous in dismissing the appeals on the basis that if an employer dismisses a male who is sexually attracted to men, i.e. homosexual, but would not dismiss a female who is sexually attracted to men, i.e. heterosexual, the man has been treated less favourably than the woman and hence has been discriminated against on grounds of gender.
The contrary argument was that the appropriate comparator would not be woman who was attracted to people of the opposite gender, but a woman who was attracted to someone of the same gender.
The House of Lords unanimously preferred the latter argument, holding that homosexuals are not protected by the provisions of the SDA 1975. If somebody is dismissed because they are homosexual, this is gender-neutral treatment by the employer provided it applies to both homosexual men and homosexual women. The appropriate comparator for a homosexual man is a homosexual woman.
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Third of workers take bogus sick days
A study has found a third of British workers think it is all right to pull a sickie — and the top reason for doing so is because they are hungover.
People living in Yorkshire, Humberside and the South West are more tempted to phone in sick after a boozy night (73%) compared with Londoners (52%) and employees in Scotland (56%).
But the research, carried out by software company Crown Computing, also showed more than half of people would be less likely to skive if their pay was being docked.
A third of people would be less likely to take an unauthorised day off if they could work more flexibly and 40% would think again if they knew their company was keeping a record of their absences.
But a stubborn 10% of the 1,000 people questioned said nothing would stop them pulling a sickie every so often if they felt like it.
Recent figures released by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) showed that bogus absences cost British businesses as much as £11.6 billion a year.
The CBI research said that public sector employees took more sick days each year (6.8) compared with workers in the private sector (4.6).
Short term absence counted for 95% of total absence, it said, and most employers thought 30% of sick days were bogus.
Managing director of Crown Computing Mike Hawkesford said:
“Our findings and those of the CBI highlight that individuals need to be managed. While keeping an eye on absences can help identify trends and patterns among specific areas of a workforce, developing an understanding that you have a problem is not good enough. Businesses need to manage absence as and when it happens.”
Editor comment
In all my years of managing people, I hated never knowing the truth behind a day off. So I created Duvet Days, which it seems are common place now, and really effective. A duvet day is a no rules day off, no explanation, no wheezing, coughing or lying. You phone in and say it is a duvet day — and that is the last it is mentioned. This works particularly well when employees just do not feel like going to work - for no reason at all - they might just feel flat, never mind hungover. I gave 2 Duvet Days free a year. In most cases one was only ever taken, and by their own admission, they loved knowing that at any time for whatever reason they could take a day off, which became so precious to them, that they would wait until a really bad duvet day was needed — inevitably, it never came round. Absenteeism became virtually extinct. If any of my staff were really sick, I wanted to wish them well, send a card and be nice for once on their return. If people are blagging and lying, those that are genuinely feeling under par, get the bum deal.
Let staff work more than 48 hours a week — CBI
Company bosses are urging the Government to protect the right of staff to work more than 48 hours a week if they want to.
A new report by the TUC claims that more than one in six UK workers work more than 48 hours a week. Nearly 4 million workers exceed this limit, and the figure is up by 350,000 since 1992.
The CBI says new research shows removing an individual’s right to opt out of the European Working Time Directive will have a ‘significant or severe’ impact on business.
A survey of 400 firms for the CBI showed the need to keep the freedom to ask staff to opt out of the weekly limit of 48 hours set out in the directive, says the business group.
Director general Digby Jones says the opt-out, which will be discussed by the European Commission later this year, is the next test of the Government’s commitment to labour market flexibility.
“People should have a right to say no to long hours and the directive rightly gives them that protection. But they don’t want unions and politicians telling them when they can work or for how long.
“That would be over-zealous interference of the nanny state. Further restrictions on working time would be a kick in the teeth for many firms, particularly smaller ones.”
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says British businesses are ‘obsessed’ with the need to make their staff work long hours.
“The Government’s own statistics suggest that 2.5 million employees want to spend less time at the office, even if less hours mean less money.
“Many workers simply don’t get a choice whether or not to work long hours — some feel bullied into staying late, for others the workplace culture means that leaving on time is seen as letting the team down.”
Firms warned not to treat jobseekers badly
Firms who don’t bother to let candidates know if they have secured a job have been warned they could face a backlash affecting their business.
Some people held a grudge and might refuse to buy products or services from companies if they felt they were not treated well during and after interviews.
A survey of 5,000 jobseekers by recruitment web site totaljobs.com found that half had attended an interview but never heard back from the company, while two out of five felt misled by the job description.
Most of those polled said they would be more likely to shun a company’s products or services if they had a negative recruitment experience.
Keith Robinson, chief operations officer for totaljobs.com, said:
“Companies need to wise up to the fact that their ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ policy is detrimental to both their reputation and their bottom line.
“Given the millions of pounds that companies spend on communicating their brand values externally, it’s interesting to see how this can be undermined through simple lack of courtesy in the recruitment process.”
Average pay rises ‘around 3.5%’
Average pay rises have stayed around 3% for the past five months but most are higher than a year ago, according to a new report.
A survey of over 100 recent deals showed that half were worth between 2.5% and 3.5%, although one in four were lower.
Settlements in the public sector average 3.4% in the year to May, compared with 2.9% in private firms, research by Industrial Relations Services (IRS) found.
IRS Pay and Benefits Bulletin editor, David Carr, said:
“The key influences on decision makers in the coming wage round are the two hardy perennials of company performance and changes in the cost of living.
“While pay rises have now caught up with inflation, the prospects for settlements rising much above 3% remains dependent on a sustained upturn in the economy.
“For manufacturers, the weakening of the pound against the euro should ease some of the pressure and help them to win back market share. However, with firms eager to rebuild margins and keep costs down, pay settlements in this sector are unlikely to increase significantly for the remainder of this year at least.”
Men earn twice as much as women — report
Women’s weekly income was half of men’s last year despite a slight improvement over the previous 12 months, according to a new report.
Average income for all women, including those working part-time or from home, was £145 a week in 2001/2, half the figure of £287 for men.
Women’s weekly income compared to men has increased from 46% in 1996/7 to 49% in 2000/1 and again to 50% in 2001/2.
Around 40% of all women had income of less than £100 a week in the latest period compared with less than a fifth of men.
Women with full time jobs had average incomes of £309 a week in 2001/2, 78% of that for men, according to the figures, released by the Department of Trade and Industry.
Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said:
“It is a well known fact that women’s income declines after they have children because they are either forced out of the labour market due to the lack of workplace flexibility or have to take less skilled jobs to work family friendly hours. That is why our approach to helping women is all about choice.”
Union leaders said the new figures showed that more needed to be done to close the pay gap, which stands at 19% on hourly pay rates.
Roger Lyons, joint general secretary of Amicus said:
“The fact that there is a 50% difference in the income of men and women is unacceptable. One of the ways to solve that is for the Government to legislate for equal pay audits.”
Graduate starting salaries ‘to average £20,000’
Average starting salaries for graduates are expected to reach £20,000 this year.
The Association of Graduate Recruiters says graduate salaries are expected to rise in every region of the UK apart from London.
The new survey has also shown they should have 7.9% more job opportunities compared with 2002.
Last year saw a 6.5% drop in graduate vacancies as tough economic conditions took their toll on large firms.
Telecoms firms expect to see a 61.3% surge in recruitment, IT companies 59.1% and consulting and business services firms 36.4%.
Vacancies in commercial and retail banking are expected to jump 36.1%.
By contrast, media industry vacancies are set to plummet 42.6%, motor manufacturer posts to fall 19.5% and chemical or pharmaceutical jobs to drop 13.2%.
At 18%, the Midlands is expected to see the biggest growth in vacancies and starting salaries in the region are also due to show the biggest average increase, up 8.2%.
The highest projected starting salaries are in investment banking and fund management, at £35,000, followed by management consulting and business services at £28,500.
The lowest average starting salaries are expected to be in transport and logistics at £16,000 and media companies £17,500.
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