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Clare Ward

Partner

Clare is a Partner in our Employment, Labor and Pensions group. She supports employers in all employment matters while focusing on Labor Relations and Employee Wellbeing.

Clare graduated from the University of Liverpool with a 2:1 and carried out her training contract in-house with the Co-operative Insurance Society. She qualified in 2003 with a trade union firm. Clare spent four years acting for trade unions and their members, gaining valuable experience and insight before joining Eversheds-Sutherland in 2007.

She now spends her time helping employers define and manage their union relationships and provides critical support if relationships break down. Clare will carry out drafting work on collective agreements as part of helping you review and manage your trade union relationships. Clare supports restructuring and TUPE exercises where careful management of the trade union relationships can be crucial.

If you do not wish to engage with trade unions, Clare can support you in managing your industrial relations strategy and will defend applications for statutory recognition. Clare also defends failure to provide information claims, I&C complaints, unlawful inducements claims and blacklisting complaints. Clare advises strategically when employers are faced with industrial action and has obtained industrial action injunctions.

Clare leads the relationship with clients predominately from the Transport, Manufacturing and Education sectors.

Clare has gained significant experience supporting employers in their employee wellbeing agendas and presents on various wellbeing subjects both publicly and in-house.

Clare's recent experience includes:

  • working as part of a team to secure an industrial action injunction, preventing pilots taking unlawful action over the Christmas and New Year period
  • advising on multiple industrial action ballots for a logistics client in the runup to their peak trading period at Christmas. Successfully preventing any time lost to action and helping the client to improve their industrial relations strategy by rolling out workshops for the HR and management teams
  • providing extensive advice and support to a leading hospitality client throughout the pandemic, working closely with them to manage the impact of the CV-19 pandemic and navigate the CJRS
  • assisting a client in varying its employment contracts and working arrangements by introducing an annualized hours shift system
  • rolling out employee wellbeing line manager training across a multi-site business in conjunction with the organization's private health provider
  • managing a one-stop shop for all employment law advice to a clients HR team and over 700 line managers via a helpline scheme. Using management information to identify trends among its workforce as well as “hot spots,” recommending steps to take to address these issues and delivering targeted training
  • Legal Practice Course, College of Law, Chester, 2000-2001
  • LLB (Hons) in Law, University of Liverpool, 1997-2000
Clare Ward

Partner

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