Ogletree Deakins’ Cross-Border Practice Group is pleased to announce the publication of the latest issue of its international newsletter, the International Employment Update, which updates employers on key employment law changes and other significant developments in the countries in which they have employees.
On October 23, 2019, the European Commission published its report after its third annual review on the functioning of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The Privacy Shield, which became operational in August 2016, details procedures and safeguards for transatlantic data transfers from the European Union (EU) to the United States.
Canadians are headed to the polls for a general election on October 21, 2019. As is the case with provincial elections, employers have certain obligations to permit employees who are qualified electors (Canadian citizens over the age of 18) to vote in federal elections.
Canadian employers subject to federal regulation will want to take note of changes to the Canada Labour Code that came into force on September 1, 2019. These reforms apply to a large number of minimum employment standards with vacation, breaks, leaves of absences, and predictive scheduling impacted, among others. As a result of the far-reaching nature of the changes, they will have a significant impact on federally regulated workplaces.
In the manufacturing industry, a workplace drug and alcohol policy can be a key feature of an employer’s health and safety program. Many manufacturers rely on testing to detect and deter employee impairment that might otherwise lead to accidents and injuries.
On July 31, 2019, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare or Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS) published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación) (DOF) the protocol to legitimize currently existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).
On July 3, 2019, in a long-awaited judgment the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom clarified the correct approach to deciding whether words can be severed from a post-employment covenant to leave an employee bound by the remainder of the covenant.
French law No. 2018-771 of September 5, 2018, which is a law “for the freedom to choose one’s professional future,” modified various subjects of interest to companies, including secondment and illegal work. Enforceable since September 7, 2018, unless specified otherwise, this legislation only applies to companies seconding employees in France. This Act reduces the employer’s obligations in order to make secondment easier and strengthens protections for secondees by increasing administrative penalties for noncompliance with such obligations.
Globalization, technology developments, and the world’s economy, among other factors, have changed our day-to-day dynamics and have transformed the way we work. This means that employees must deal with emotions and circumstances that in the past were not significant but today are studied and classified by scientists as “psychosocial risks.”
Ogletree Deakins’ Cross-Border Practice Group is pleased to announce the publication of the latest issue of its international newsletter, the International Employment Update, which updates employers on key employment law changes and other significant developments in the countries in which they have employees.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and EU supervisory authorities have reported that they have received a large number of complaints during the first six months following the effective date of the GDPR. For example, the EDPB reported that it had received more than 42,000 complaints since May 25, 2018. The French Supervisory Authority (CNIL) reported a 20 percent increase in complaints filed during the first six months the GDPR was effective compared to the same period in 2017. Similarly, the Irish Supervisory Authority reported a 50 percent increase in data breach reports and a 65 percent increase in data protection complaints over the same period. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner also stated that several investigations of multijurisdictional complaints against large companies are being completed and that she expects major GDPR fines to be issued in 2019.
After only five months in office, President López Obrador—who won by a landslide during the last presidential election and whose political party holds the majority of Congress—amended the Mexican Federal Labor Law and other applicable laws on May 1, 2019.
Article 35 of the GDPR provides that a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) must be performed for data processing that “is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons.” DPIAs must contain (1) a description of the processing operation along with the purpose of the processing and, where applicable, the legitimate interest for the processing; (2) an assessment of the necessity and proportionality of the processing operation in relation to the purpose; (3) an assessment of the risks to the rights and freedoms of the data subjects; and (4) the measures to be taken to mitigate the risks.
Although the GDPR was intended to provide a uniform set of data protection requirements across the EU, the GDPR contains several provisions, known as “opening clauses,” that expressly permit individual EU countries to implement additional and/or stricter requirements for certain types of data that employers typically process.
The UK government has lost its case defending the multiple convictions rule, which requires an individual to disclose all spent convictions if he or she has two or more such convictions.
Much has happened since the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018. Many EU countries have enacted national legislation to implement and expand the requirements of the GDPR, while other developments have directly affected employers and created new obligations regarding the collection and processing of human resources (HR) data.
April 4, 2019 will mark the first anniversary of mandatory private-sector gender pay gap reporting in the United Kingdom. One year in, and organizations appear to be in the same last-minute position they were in during the first reporting year, submitting their data just before the deadline. Regardless of timing, the key question is: has the last 12 months had any impact on the issue of addressing the gender pay gap generally?
Mexico is in a new era when it comes to labor law, with several significant developments affecting the country’s labor landscape.
There are about 2.4 million domestic employees in Mexico, 95 percent of whom are women and do not have social security benefits. The Mexican Supreme Court of Justice recently held that it is not legal to exclude domestic employees from the country’s social security system, which is administered by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
The Netherlands is one of the few places in the world where dismissing an employee requires prior authorization from the government (unless it is done summarily for urgent cause).
In response to the yellow vests movement (mouvement des gilets jaunes), which calls for measures to increase purchasing power of France’s working class, a law adopted on December 24, 2018, which was then clarified in two government circulars (Circ. DSS/5B/2019/29, dated February 6, 2019) recently introduced an “exceptional purchasing power bonus.”
Manufacturers in Canada face a labor and employment environment that is much more employee and union-friendly than the United States. That said, a sophisticated manufacturing employer that is educated, strategic, and proactive about managing its plant can find itself with a competitive business advantage. Here are just a few of the “Need to Knows” for manufacturers that are presently doing business or thinking about doing business in the Great White North.
On January 21, 2019, a select panel of the French data protection authority, CNIL, which has the power to impose sanctions, fined a major technological services provider €50 million following its failure to comply with the obligations provided for in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Have you heard of the “fake president” fraud? Despite the name, it has nothing to do with politics; it is a worldwide financial scam that has affected hundreds of multinational companies, especially companies in Europe.
The latest version of Article L. 1235-3 of the French Labor Code, based on the “Macron Ordinances,” has recently been the subject of major dispute, with several labor tribunals issuing conflicting decisions.
On January 9, 2019, Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography issued an official press release regarding the daily, monthly, and annual value of the Unit of Measure and Update (UMA) that will become effective on February 1, 2019.
Mexico’s Ministry of Interior (Secretaria de Gobernación, SEGOB) and National Immigration Institute (NII) (Instituto Nacional de Migración, INM) published new governmental fees for immigration procedures related to foreign nationals and expatriates that took effect January 1, 2019.
Several changes in labour and employment law have recently been implemented in several Canadian provinces.
In December 2018, the Mexican National Commission on Minimum Wages (Comisión Nacional de los Salarios Mínimos, or CONASAMI) issued a resolution to increase the daily general minimum wage (DGMW) beginning on January 1, 2019.
As a result of July’s presidential election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador became the new president of Mexico, winning by a wide margin over his competitors. He took office on December 1, 2018, for a six-year term extending from 2018-2024.
