The Centre for Employment Law at the University of East Anglia Law School offers a programme of evening and full day seminars covering all aspects of individual Employment Law, leading to a Postgraduate Certificate in Employment Law.

Components

• A series of ten evening seminars on Employment Law.
• A full-day seminar on Unfair Dismissal and the Work of the Employment Tribunals, with an Employment Tribunal Chairman
• A full-day seminar on Resolving Employment Problems, with a senior member of ACAS
• A 10-15,000-word Dissertation on an Employment Law topic of your choice, written under expert personal supervision
• Option of credit transfer to the new Masters Degree LLM Employment Law

Those not wishing to gain a formal qualification may attend the ten evening seminars and/or the full-day seminars. Delegates who sign up initially for the evening seminars may transfer onto the Postgraduate Certificate up to November.

Feedback from Previous Courses

"I found the whole course interesting. The tutors were both very good - 2 hours passed very quickly!"

"Brilliant and very inspiring"

"Very useful and informative, covering just the right amount of detail"

"Very informative and enjoyable. A good mix of delegates"

"Excellent and interesting speakers"

Programme Structure

The course will cover all the major topics in what is usually called Industrial Law, Labour Law or Employment Law (the terms are effectively interchangeable) except Health and Safety at Work and Trade Union Law.

NB: The seminars may be subject to change.

Seminar One: Introduction to Subject

• Brief history of the legislation
• Sources (statutes, law reports etc)
• How to deal with the set reading

• The legal status of collective bargaining
• The relevant institutions - ACAS, CAC, Certification Officer
• An introduction to employment tribunals and the EAT
• Independence, recognition and de-recognition of trade unions
• Employee consultation under domestic and EU law 

• The contractual basis for employment - history and contemporary problems; employment and self-employment
• Terms of the contract; how terms can be changed
• Incorporation of the terms from collective agreements
• The obligatory statement of terms and conditions
• Restraint of trade clauses and garden leave clauses
• Contracts which are void because illegal
• Use of contracts to cover particular employment related problems (e.g. on sickness, absenteeism, company rules) 

• How a contract may end without a dismissal (in particular, by mutual consent or frustration, e.g. through long term sickness or imprisonment)
• Lawful dismissal - for cause or by proper notice
• Remedies for wrongful dismissal -can the employee get the job back? If not, what damages will be awarded?

• The meaning of unfair dismissal
• Employment tribunal procedure - how legalistic should it be?
• General principles of unfair dismissal and remedies
• Specific areas, in particular incapability, sickness, misconduct and absenteeism and the rules relating to dismissal for taking part in industrial action
• Procedural factors - warnings and hearings; the ACAS Code of Practice and Disciplinary Handbook

• The legal definition of redundancy; collective redundancies
• The right to a redundancy payment
• When will a redundancy dismissal be unfair? How closely will a tribunal look into it?
• Continuity of employment - the importance of the concept and the basic rules for calculating it
• Application to atypical employment
• The Transfer of Undertakings Regulations

• The common law right to wages and its significance in modern Employment Law
• Recovery of mistaken overpayments
• The statutory rules on deductions from wages and cashless pay
• Payment during sickness absence - contractual rights; entitlement to SSP
• The National Minimum Wage legislation
• The Working Time Regulations - working time, rest breaks and holidays
• Statutory rights to time off work for job-seeking, public duties and trade union reasons

• Pregnancy dismissal - unfair dismissal and sex discrimination; redundancy during maternity leave
• The right to maternity leave - ordinary, additional and compulsory maternity leave, and the relationship with contractual rights
• Maternity pay - contractual rights; entitlement to SMP
• Health and safety of pregnant workers
• Time off for ante-natal care
• The provisions on parental leave and time off for domestic incidents, enacting EU law requirements
• The provisions on paternity leave, adoption leave and flexible working 

• Sources of law - domestic legislation and the EU dimension
• Possible effects of the Human Rights Act 1998
• Direct and indirect discrimination
• Justifying discrimination - positive discrimination, the genuine occupational qualifications and the justification defence
• Dress and personal appearance codes
• Sexual and racial harassment at work
• Equal pay - the meaning of like work and work of equal value; the special procedure in equal value cases
• Enforcement and remedies - the burden of proof; drawing inferences; vicarious liability; compensation

• The Disability Discrimination Act and the meaning of disability
• The duty to make reasonable adjustments
• The justification defence in DDA cases
• The new provisions on religious discrimination
• The Code of Practice on age discrimination, and the provisions introduced in 2006