Starbucks have made the headlines having been found to have unlawfully discriminated and victimised an employee with dyslexia in a judgment issued by the Employment Tribunal this week....
Disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on someone’s “ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities” (Section 6(1), Equality Act 2010)....
In the case of Bone v North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust [2016], the Court of Appeal reinstated a tribunal’s decision that an employer’s failure to deal with hostility towards a union member was unlawful detriment. Workers are protected against suffering a detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by their employer if the act or failure to act takes place for the sole or main purpose of preventing or deterring them from taking part in trade union activities at an appropriate time....
The Upper Tribunal, that deals with tax appeals, has upheld a decision that a settlement payment for injury to feelings made in connection with a termination of employment was taxable as a termination payment. ...
An employment tribunal has recently held that an immigration officer, who accepted a bribe and then delayed returning the money and reporting it, was fairly dismissed....
In the immigration team we help people who are applying for many different kinds of visa – from students to skilled workers, visitors to spouses. But what do all visa applications have in common?...
The EAT has overruled a tribunal’s decision, holding the fact that employees over 50 were entitled to early retirement benefits under the pension scheme (making their severance costs much higher than for employees aged under 50) was not a "relevant circumstance"....
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), which advises the government on migration issues, has published areview of Tier 2. ...
This week, regulations 2015 came into effect making any dismissal of an employee on a zero hours contract automatically unfair, if the principal reason for the dismissal is that the employee breached a contractual provision seeking to prohibit him/her from working for another employer. Such provisions are now unlawful. No qualifying period is required to bring such an unfair dismissal claim....
The European Court of Human Rights’ Judgment in a Romanian employment dispute has been widely reported in the national press as giving the green light to employers to monitor employees’ personal emails and electronic messages on work systems....
In Kelly v Covance Laboratories Ltd the Employment Appeals Tribunal held that an employer’s instruction to an employee not to speak Russian (her native language) at work was not direct race discrimination or race harassment. ...
In Paturel v DB Services (UK) Ltd the High Court held that an employer’s decision to award one employee a discretionary bonus and two others a larger guaranteed bonus did not breach the employee’s express contractual term to be treated consistently with peers nor did it breach any implied term to act in good faith and in a manner that was not perverse or irrational. The employee also claimed that the employer’s subsequent failure to provide accurate reasons for the sums awarded was a breach of trust and confidence. ...
There’s been plenty of bad press about zero hours contracts in recent years. In October we blogged about guidance published by BIS for employers on how zero hours contracts should be used. The guidance recommended that these contracts should make clear to the individual how work will be offered and that they are not obliged to accept work on every occasion....
According to the conciliation service, ACAS, there has been an increase in recent years in the number of deaths in England and Wales owing to “legal highs”, legal substances such as solvents, bath salts, incense or plant food which imitate the effects of illegal drugs when consumed....
Celtic Manor Resort in South Wales has inadvertently become the focus of media attention following its decision to recruit a Mr and Mrs Claus for its “Christmas Kingdom” attraction. The job advertisements stated that Father Christmas would be paid £12 per hour whilst Mrs Claus will receive the national minimum wage of £6.70 per hour, nearly half the rate paid to Father Christmas....
This is an update to our detailed report on holiday pay in July- Where are we on holiday pay?...
ACAS has released updated guidance on managing disability in the workplace 'Disability discrimination: key points for the workplace’. ACAS say that last year they had nearly 12,000 calls to the their helpline related to disability issues and received almost 3,000 disability discrimination employment tribunal cases....
If a client decides to outsource certain services for the first time, reassign those services to another contractor or bring those services back “in-house,” there may be a service provision change under TUPE. If however the activities performed relate to a one off event or task of short-term duration, TUPE will not apply....
In the recent case of Science Warehouse Ltd v Mills (UKEAT/0224/15), the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that it is not necessary for a claimant to go through the Early Conciliation process (“EC process”) again in respect of a new claim arising out of a related set of facts after the EC process has concluded and an ET1 presented to the Tribunal....
Earlier this year the Government announced that it would be introducing an apprenticeship levy on large employers as part of its pledge to create 3 million quality apprenticeships over the next five years....