Work/Life: international employment news update

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Issue 70

Welcome to the latest edition of our international employment news update.

New whistleblowing law adopted in Austria

A new whistleblowing law has been adopted in Austria. The Austrian Parliament approved the legislation which seeks to transpose the EU Directive on whistleblowing into national law, making it the 17th country to adopt legislation to implement the directive. The law is expected to come into force in March.

On 9 March 2023 we are speaking at the GC Summit in Vienna on implementing new policies in the EU – GC Summit Austria 2023. For more on Taylor Wessing's whistleblowing resources see – Insights.

Recent ruling in Germany closes gender pay gap

A recent ruling by the Federal Labour Court states that a higher salary of a male employee compared to a female employee should always be justified on the basis of objective, not subjective criteria. Equal pay will otherwise apply where women and men are doing the same work.

Register for our Diversity, Equality & Inclusion webinar on 16 March here (please note this webinar will be presented in German).

Calls for statutory maternity pay in UK to be brought in line with National Living Wage

Compared to Europe, the UK is said to have 'extraordinarily low rates of maternity pay' equating to just 47% of the National Living Wage. The current rate of statutory maternity pay at £156.66 per week will increase to £172.48 per week from April but campaigners say that this is not enough due to the cost of living crisis.

McDonald's signs agreement to protect UK workers

McDonald's has made a pledge with the UK's Equalities and Human Rights Commission under a legally binding agreement to deal with over 1,000 complaints received from employees about workplace behaviour. Measures include a "zero tolerance" approach to sexual harassment, providing anti-harassment training for employees and improving its policies.

Changes to Labour Codes in CE

An amendment has been made to the Labour Code in Poland which offers solutions to improve the work-life balance of employees, parents, and employers. The new provisions include longer parental leave, extra care leave, flexible working hours and the option to be released from work due to force majeure.

Contract workers will be entitled to annual leave and parents can apply to work from home and will receive a utilities allowance to do so under a new amendment to the Czech Labour Code. Employment contracts and notices of termination will also go digital. This has come after pressure from many authorities and organizations to increase the rights of employees and must be adopted as quickly as possible for Czech Republic to avoid paying a considerable fine to the EU as such changes are mandated by European directives.

Rising energy prices: French Government provides financial aid to companies

The French Government has decided to provide small and medium-sized companies with various financial aids to combat rising energy prices.

The most emphasised measure for companies with less than 10 employees is the tariff shield (bouclier tarifaire) capped the increase in electricity prices to 15% from 1 February which subsequently prevented a 120% increase in company energy bills.

Companies with less than 250 employees can benefit from the electricity damper (amortisseur électricité) where the French state bears part of the company's electricity bill as soon as the tariff they have subscribed to exceeds a certain level.

Dutch tech start-ups ‘increasingly disadvantaged’ by lack of cash

Dutch tech start-ups benefit from less investment than their competitors in other countries and are finding it hard to recruit enough people, despite the mass redundancies at big tech companies. A report by TechLeap shows that the average financing per start-up in the Netherlands in 2022 was €260,0000, compared with €900,000 in Sweden and €670,000 in France and the UK.

On 23 March 2023 we are hosting a webinar on restructuring and redundancies. You can find the link to register here.