THASCS Talks (aka) BEERG Bytes

In the latest BEERG Byte #39 Tom Hayes chats with Dr Gerlind Wisskirchen, of C/M/S/-HS about a recent study her labour law team conducted on the content of EWC agreements.  The survey looked at country of jurisdiction, the number of representatives of EWCs, employee thresholds for EWC seats, budgets for experts, amongst other things. They also discuss the new German Whistleblowing legislation, and the agenda of the SDP/FDP/Green government. It is available as a Videocast on YouTube

BEERG's Tom Hayes chats with David Hopper and Vince Toman of Lewis Silkin about the controversy arising for P&O ferries decision to make 800 UK based seafarers redundant.  The discussion was recorded on March 25th one day after a UK Parliamentary committee hearing where MPs took the P&O management to task over their actions and questioned UK ministers on their response, specifically lacunas in the UK’s laws, which the UK government says it will speedily address.

In this first BEERG Byte of 2022 , Tom chats with Philip Bickerstaffe, an experienced labour relations leader, with a successful career on the union and management side.  Philip believes the current conversation on remote/hybrid working excludes a huge part of the workforce, those who cannot take advantage of its benefits. Philip wrote an excellent post on his topic on LinkedIn. Tom and Philip discuss what, if anything, we can offer to those who can’t share the benefits of remote working, what is the differentiator?

We know Northern Ireland from its troubled past and the current argument over the NI Protocol… but does Northern Ireland have a distinct IR culture? Is that different from the rest of the UK?

What might the Protocol mean for IR in NI? Would NI legislation be very different from that of the UK? What about the Equality Directives? What about Data Adequacy?

Tom is joined by Ciara Fulton of Lewis Silkin LLP and Mark McAllister of the Northern Ireland the Labour Relations Agency, to discuss these issues

Tom is joined by Lea Rossi and Marco Sideri, partners in the law firm, Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo e Soci, to discuss the “Green Pass” obligation on employees, introduced last Friday in Italy.  The pass, accessed via an App, shows if the person has met one of three criteria. It is a Green/Red (yes/no) system. The criteria are: 1. has the required Covid vaccination(s), 2. recovered from Covid-19 within the past 6 months, or 3. has a negative swab test taken in the past 48-72 hours. The App does not indicate which criteria was matched, just that the person has matched one and is able to enter the workplace. Recorded Oct 18th 2021

Tom is joined by Pernille Rudlin, an expert on Japanese industry in the UK and EU, to discuss how Japanese companies have responded to Brexit, tracing the progress of UK/EU/Japanese trade relations from Margaret Thatcher’s promotion of Britain as a Japanese gateway to the EU in the early 1980’s, through to the present day. This is also available as a videocast at www.beerg.com/beergbytes

In this episode Tom discusses the recent German election with Dr Fabian Zuleeg, CEO of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. They consider the possible policy changes you might see from a traffic light coalition government comprising the Red (SPD), Yellow (FDP) and Green (The Greens) parties. 

Tom is joined by Stuart Worker of thepurposeful.co.uk. Stuart is a leadership development coach, specialising in human motivation and team dynamics. Tom and Stuart talk about the health, safety and psychological issues that arose over the past 18 months of working from home.This is the first of two conversations with Stuart. The next one will focus on the problems we can expect to see arise from hybrid working.

Tom Hayes is joined by Vince Toman and Stephen O’Flaherty of Lewis Silkin LLP to discuss the impact of Brexit on labour relations issues across the UK, particularly Northern Ireland. The conversation looks at issues around: the Northern Ireland Protocol; the end of Freedom of Movement and the position of EWCs in the UK.

Tom Hayes is joined by Auret van Heerden a labour rights expert and founder/CEO of Equiception, a consultancy  specialising in sustainable supply chains, corporate social responsibility and workers’ rights. They discuss the requirement for companies to report what they are doing to prevent modern forms of forced labour and how HR data may be used in conducting remote human rights due diligence.