Construction union Ucatt is claiming what it calls ‘a highly significant victory’ against an umbrella company that was ruled to have deducted wages of a client unlawfully. Above: Ucatt has been waging a long-running campaign against umbrella companies A Ucatt member based in the northwest took umbrella company Paystream My Max Ltd to an employment tribunal. The tribunal judge found in the union’s favour and said that Paystream My Max was ‘not open and transparent’. The plaintiff was awarded nearly £4,000 for unlawful deductions as the judge assessed that he had never agreed to deductions to be made for the employer’s national insurance contributions, the employer’s pension contributions or ‘a margin payment’ (the umbrella company’s charge). Holiday pay was also rolled up into the rate. Ucatt acting general secretary Brian Rye said: “This was a highly significant victory as it demonstrated that there is an opportunity to challenge the fairness of the practices of umbrella companies in tribunals. I would like to praise the courage of our member in taking the case and the hard work of the regional officials in supporting him throughout the process. “Whenever Ucatt has the clear opportunity to legally challenge the legality of umbrella companies we will not hesitate in doing so.” Mr Rye added: “Although this was a significant victory, this case is far from a magic bullet in the fight against umbrella companies. There is a multi-million pound industry which seeks to legitimise umbrella companies and false self-employment in construction. The problem of umbrella companies will continue until they are outlawed from the industry.”     This article was published on 12 Nov 2015 (last updated on 12 Nov 2015). Source link

©Bloomberg Norway’s $900bn oil fund has underlined its ethical credentials by adding US utility Duke Energy to a list of companies it is barred from investing in due to the risk of “severe environmental damage”.  The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund put Duke on its list of more than 110 companies that it will not buy shares in, which includes Airbus, Boeing, Philip Morris, Rio Tinto and Wal Mart.  More On this topic IN Utilities The oil fund backed a recommendation from Norway’s council of ethics — an independent body that reviews corporate behaviour — that Duke had “repeatedly discharged harmful substances from a large number of ash basins at coal-fired power plants in North Carolina”.  The Norwegian fund is one of the most influential investors in the world, owning on average 1.3 per cent of every listed company globally, and its decisions on which businesses to exclude are often followed by other shareholders.  The fund owned a 0.62 per cent stake in Duke — worth $304m — at the end of last year but sold all its shares before announcing the utility’s exclusion from its investment universe, as it typically does.  Duke had been lobbying the fund to avoid being banned under Norway’s attempts to exclude any company deriving more than 30 per cent of its business from coal, according to local press reports from the US.  But the council of ethics instead centred in on the ash basins.It said in April it was recommending the fund exclude Duke Energy and three subsidiaries “due to the unacceptable risk of these companies being responsible for severe environmental damage”. “For many years, these companies have among other things repeatedly discharged environmentally harmful substances from a large number of ash basins at coal-fired power plants in North Carolina,” it added. Several court rulings have ordered Duke and the subsidiaries to remove or seal the ash basins, but the measures would not be completely carried out for 10 to 15 years, said the council. Norway’s oil fund was among the first state-backed investors to name publicly the companies it was excluding. It started more than a decade ago, focusing initially on the makers of arms such as anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions and nuclear weapons. The oil fund added tobacco producers in 2009 and coal companies this year.  Duke said: “It is unfortunate that [the oil fund] did not consider Duke Energy’s proactive actions to enhance our environmental stewardship and close ash basins across our jurisdictions.” Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link