What will the Flexible Working Regulations 2014 mean for employers and employees?
“That which yields is not always weak” (Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Dart). From 30 June 2014, changes to the Flexible Working Regulations mean that any employee meeting the minimum service eligibility...
Pregnancy Discrimination in the Australian Workplace
As part of its national review into pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) recently released data from a national phone survey measuring discrimination in the...
The Business of Traffic in Humans
Human trafficking is a complex phenomenon touching upon different legal and policy frameworks. Being first and foremost a very serious crime, its relationship with human rights law is not as...
Sex Workers Equally Protected from Sexual Harassment as Other Workers – Says New Zealand Case
In 2003, New Zealand decriminalised sex work and established a system of safeguards for those engaged in such work through the Prostitution Reform Act. Just over a decade later, the...
The Regulation of Casual Work and the Problematical Idea of the ‘Zero Hours Contract’
There has of late been considerable public concern in the UK about the use of a kind of employment arrangement known as the ‘zero hours contract’. The essence of employment...
Scotland’s Answer to Modern-Day Slavery
A new standalone human trafficking bill for Scotland has been quietly gaining momentum in the corridors of Holyrood. On Monday it was announced that a formal proposal by Labour MP...
Women at work – positive obligations for positive results
The most significant change in recent decades influencing the position of women at work is the transformation of state-managed capitalism into a globally marketised, privatised, deregulated system. This is accompanied...
New employment tribunal fees and discrimination: UNISON v Lord Chancellor; Equality and Human Rights Commission
The High Court (Moses LJ, Irwin J) today delivered judgment in the important judicial review proceedings brought by UNISON to challenge the fees regime introduced in the employment tribunal and...
The CJEU’s Ruling in AMS and the Horizontal Effect of the Charter
In its judgment in AMS (15 January 2014), the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the...
The CJEU's Ruling in AMS and the Horizontal Effect of the Charter
In its judgment in AMS (15 January 2014), the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the...
Safety of Sex-Workers Again at the Centre in Canada (Attorney General) v Bedford
Earlier this year, I argued that the ONCA gave a comprehensive and nuanced assessment of Canada’s criminal provisions on prostitution. The Supreme Court of Canada in a unanimous decision upheld...
A Form of Child Trafficking in Haiti: The Orphanage Business
In the next few weeks, the Haitian senate will vote, for the first time, on anti-trafficking legislation. The legislation would make the movement of children and adults for the purpose...
