Weekly Issue 237

What does the future hold for trade unions?

The latest in a series of papers commissioned by Acas to address the future of workplace relations asks what role trade unions can - and will - play.
Written by Chris Wright, a research fellow in the economics faculty at Cambridge University, the paper looks at the changing role of trade unions over the last 30 years.

Moving house

The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) says there is a transfer when “activities” cease to be carried out by one person but are then carried out by another. In Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust v Hamshaw and ors, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said that TUPE did not apply when the activities carried on by the new employer were not “fundamentally or essentially the same” as those before the transfer.

The right to annual leave

The 1998 Working Time Regulations (WTR) state that workers are entitled to annual leave in the leave year in which it is due. In NHS Leeds v Larner, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said that a worker who was off sick for an entire leave year had the right to have her leave entitlement carried over and the right to be paid for it when her employment was terminated.