Legal Issues in Employment Law - Briefing Note for Clients

Demonstrating Knowledge and Understanding of Employment Law

1. Demonstrate the following knowledge and understanding:
A breadth of knowledge of the history, regulation and institutions of employment law both from an individual and collective perspective.
2. Demonstrate the following skills and abilities:
Apply legal rules to complex factual employment law problems relating to both the recruitment and dismissal of employees.

You are a paralegal working for a small employment law firm in Hertfordshire. One of the supervisors, Amy Wells, would like you to assist her with two clients she is seeing later on this afternoon.

Rhidian has been working at a market stall selling fruit and vegetables in Hitchin four days a week for about 6 months. Rhidian works 6 hours a day between 8am and 2pm every Tuesday through to Friday and gets paid £180 per week. Rhidian is 30 years old.
Rhidian has recently applied for a mortgage with his wife Leya at Extortion Bank Ltd. Extortion Bank Ltd requires Rhidian to provide 3 months of payslips to support the application. Rhidian has never received any.
When Rhidian queried this with the market stall owner, Jamie, he became quite irritated and told him that he ‘didn’t have time for this nonsense’.
Rhidian cannot remember ever receiving a contract. Rhidian has not yet taken any time off working from the stall.
Rhidian is worried that if he asks Jamie again about the payslips that he may lose his job. He cannot afford this.

Helena is the owner of ‘Hot Stuff’ in Hemel Hempstead which is a plant that manufactures swimwear and sunhats.
The busiest time for production annually is between March and May when the English weather picks up and the volume of orders increase.
Over one third of Helena’s workforce is Muslim. Helena was worried about the impact of annual leave of her Muslim staff as the Lunar Calendar (Islamic calendar) is moving forward each year. Key festivals such as Ramadan and Eid are starting to coincide with peak production time at the plant. To avoid any problems with manufacturing Helena introduced a no holiday rule for all staff in March, April and May citing business needs.
However, this has not gone down very well with the staff, almost all of whom are union members. Furthermore, the union representative, Zach Hussain, has threatened that more than 50% of the union members are willing to strike over the next few months until the rule is reversed.
Helena is very worried.

Amy would like you to provide a detailed briefing note for her, supported by reference to legislation and case law, as to what the key issues are for both clients and what the way forward is for them. 

Note on academic integrity: in all assessments, you are expected to adhere strictly to the principles of academic integrity. All written assignments are submitted electronically and checked for originality through SafeAssign. In addition, should any doubt arise as to whether the written work submitted for assessment is your own work, you will be called by the Unit Co-ordinator for the purpose of a viva voce examination on the assessment.

What do I need to do to pass? (Threshold Expectations from UIF)

Identify the relevant legal issues arising from the scenario and apply relevant legislation and case law to produce sound legal advice; 
Write in a clear, structured and grammatically correct manner and reference your sources in accordance with OSCOLA. 

How do I produce high quality work that merits a good grade?

We will be filling this section in together in class on Click or tap to enter a date. make sure you have downloaded/printed out the Assignment Brief and bring it to the session with you.

How does assignment relate to what we are doing in scheduled sessions?

The assessment is practice based and mimics what you may be required to do in practice. The assessment is broad based which means that it draws across a wide range of topics covered within the unit. You will be expected to work on your assessment for the duration of the unit applying your knowledge as the unit develops in content. There will be also be time allocated within the unit structure to discuss the assessment.