The Baker McKenzie London Employment team is delighted to welcome you back to our virtual mini-series, “Employment Rights: is 2022 the year of enforcement?”, with episode four, which is part two of our holiday pay focus during which we’ve explored key considerations for employers who are managing the thorny issue of holiday pay. This episode builds on that discussion with analysis of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Harpur Trust v Brazel case, which is likely to require many employers to change the way they calculate holiday pay for atypical workers such as casual, bank and zero hours staff (amongst others).
The EU Whistleblower Directive has been in force since 16 December 2019, and was to be implemented in national law by 17 December 2021. On 27 July 2022, the German Federal Cabinet approved a government draft of the Whistleblower Protection Act, so that — with considerable delay — the further legislative process has been initiated.
Welcome to our Virtual Global Trade Conference, a virtual offering for all our clients and friends worldwide. Baker McKenzie’s international trade compliance lawyers from around the world discussed the major developments impacting international trade, in 75 minutes sessions which took place from 20 to 21 July 2022.
What’s changed?
On 15 July 2022, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare published the Draft from Official Mexican Standard called PROY-NOM-037-STPS-2022 regarding health and safety standards for telework, understood as the:
“way of subordinate labor organization consisting of the performance of paid activities at different places from original workplace for which the physical presence of teleworker is not necessary required in it, using information and communication technologies contact and control between the teleworker and the employer.”
The standard will be applied throughout the Mexican Republic to employers and work centers with employees who telework for more than 40% of their weekly working hours.
On 23 June 2022, the US Department of Health and Human Services Office on Trafficking in Persons issued a request for information on forced labor, a form of human trafficking, in healthcare supply chains. This request for information is part of the office’s ongoing efforts to seek public comments to inform implementation of Executive Order 14001 “A Sustainable Public Health Supply Chain“, the National Strategy for a Resilient Public Health Supply Chain, and other related efforts on forced labor.
The recently signed United States-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership focuses on enhanced engagement, increased trade and investment, and sustainable and inclusive growth that is beneficial to both countries. The agreement aligns with the US’s renewed Prosper Africa initiative, announced a year ago.
TMT companies are often the first to develop innovative solutions and to face increasingly sophisticated regulation of key technologies they develop. As such, they have a unique opportunity to shape many areas including data strategies aligned to I&D, the future of remote work, and due diligence requirements for supply chains. A focus on data ethics underscores companies’ management of tangled data regulations and obligations as stewards of data. Additionally, TMT companies will also continue to develop and support innovative technologies to access and store renewable energy.
Following the government’s recent announcement, Parliament has approved the removal of the prohibition on businesses using temporary workers to cover staff taking part in industrial action and increased the maximum amount of damages that a court can award against a trade union for unlawful strike action. These changes became effective on 21 July 2022.
Vietnam is becoming an increasingly important market for talent, and we have witnessed growing demand for the offering of share-based awards to employees in Vietnam in recent years. Due to currency control restrictions imposed by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), including the requirement that each plan be registered with the SBV, it has traditionally been challenging to implement a share plan in Vietnam. Since the adoption of Circular 10 in 2016, the SBV registration process has been clarified and a growing number of companies have successfully registered their plans with the SBV.
Draft regulations that extend the ban on exclusivity clauses in employment contracts from those on zero-hours contracts to include those earning on or less than GBP 123 per week have been laid before Parliament.