What is changing and when, including the Employment Rights Act 2025, and how other systems answer the same questions.
From 1 January 2027, on the Government’s current timetable, a dismissal used to force through a cut in pay, hours or pension will be unfair unless the employer proves its survival as a going concern was at stake. Bogg and Green’s new Industrial Law Journal article is the first sustained reading of sections 104I to 104K; this note sets out what each side will have to prove.
Falk and Tsoukalas's AI Layoff Trap shows that the only thing that stops over-automation is making each dismissal more expensive (the authors' “marginal instruments”). As currently drafted, Section 139(1)(b) ERA 1996 lets an employer replace an employee with a model and pay only a capped redundancy package; the most elegant fix open to a UK parliament is to redefine what counts as redundancy — turning the substitution from a safe exit into an exposed one.
A lecturer dismissed for what he said to students never mentioned Article 10 before the tribunal. The EAT has held that speech alone does not make the Convention shout out, and in doing so has fixed the boundary between the two lines of authority on points a tribunal must take for itself.
The Amsterdam Court of Appeal has held that Uber drivers are not employees, five years after the Supreme Court held they were workers. Same app, opposite answers — and the reversal turns on a factor English law barely weighs: what the driver does when the app is off.
Comparing the Dutch system of prior regulatory permission for dismissal with the UK's ex post facto Tribunal regime.
A reflection on the International Employment Lawyers Association conference themes, mapping the aggressive expansion of cross-border worker protections against the UK's domestic corpus, from transnational blacklisting to the whistleblowing detriment trap.
From 6 April 2026, the maximum protective award in collective redundancy cases doubles from 90 to 180 days' pay per employee. For any restructuring currently in planning, the exposure calculation needs to be revisited now. And the group structure trap catches out more employers than it should.
Sir Charlie Mayfield’s plan to bypass the fit note system with standardised health plans offers a proactive alternative to economic inactivity, but its reliance on non-medical assessors and common standards introduces significant legal friction points for chronic ill health management.
A roundup of key developments including the Employment Rights Act 2025 implementation, the Kelly v Leonardo gender critical ruling, and privacy procedural changes in Tribunals.
With Day One unfair dismissal rights expected in Q2/Q3 2026, employers have approximately 20 weeks to prepare. A practical checklist for probation policies, onboarding, and manager training.
A review of late December 2025 EAT judgments: Gormley (redundancy without consultation, and what it costs) and Muda (state immunity for mission staff).
A look at what 2025 holds for employment law, including day one unfair dismissal rights under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the Court of Appeal's call for whistleblowing reform, and practical implications of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers.
Redundancy · Whistleblowing (Public Interest Disclosure) · Contract of Employment