The government is seeking an injunction to block strike action by thousands of public sector workers on the eve of the Olympics. The Home Office has said that it believes there were "procedural errors" in the PCS union ballot and that it will be requesting an injunction in the High Court today. If successful, the union would be obliged to re-ballot its members, delaying the strike....
The Prime Minister has recently pledged to "change the law" to allow people to wear religious symbols in the workplace in relation to a discussion regarding the case of Eweida v British Airways Plc [2009]. Nadia Eweida was a former British Airways (BA) employee. She was asked to go home by BA for wearing a visible crucifix around her neck in breach of the company`s dress code. She claimed relig...
The British Medical Association has announced that it is not planning any further industrial action at this stage. The BMA had encouraged NHS doctors to take industrial action on 21st June 2012 by stopping all non-urgent NHS patient care (as we reported on 30th May 2012). This was over concerns with the Government`s plans for doctors` pensions and an increase in their retirement age to...
The Supreme Court yesterday handed down judgment in R (Alvi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 33 and some commentators are already saying it could be one of the most important judgements on immigration in a decade. The Telegraph reported yesterday, Supreme Court delivers blow to the immigration rules, the Supreme court was unanimous in it decision that it was wrong to bar...
Can I make a pregnant employee or an employee on maternity leave redundant? When looking at selection criteria, do I have to ignore all the negatives associated with an employee because she is pregnant or on maternity leave? Do I have to prejudice others in a redundancy process because another employee in the pool is pregnant or on maternity leave? Does an employee on maternity leave have to...
This was the question that an Employment Appeal Tribunal recently had to consider in Quashie -v- Stringfellows Restaurants Ltd. Miss Quashi had been a lapdancer at a Stringfellows gentleman`s club, Angels, in London. She brought an unfair dismissal claim against Stringfellows, and for this needed to show that she was an employee. Miss Quashi had initially understood that she was self-em...
Mr Justice Underhill, the former President of the EAT, has proposed some fundamental changes to the existing Tribunal Rules, including: requiring an early paper sift of weak cases to ensure employment judges consider these earlier in the process and dismiss claims with no arguable complaint or response. This is something that has mooted for some time and would bring employment tribunal process...
The rise of social media as a prevalent tool for conducting business has led to issues such as if an employee leaves, can the employer stop them taking business relationships with them?...
The Ministry of Justice has announced the introduction of fees in employment tribunals, intended to take effect in Summer 2013. According to the press release, the aim is "to encourage businesses and workers to mediate or settle a dispute rather than go to a full hearing", as well as reduce taxpayer subsidy. Taxpayers currently meet the full cost of the system....
The Government has set a target that 25% of board members of FTSE 250 companies be women by the year 2015. The ‘30 per cent Club,` which works to increase the number of women in boardroom posts, has set that target at 30% (as reflected in the name!)....
The EAT has recently heard Taurus Group Ltd v Crofts and another UKEAT/0024/12, which is a significant case for second generation outsourcing and commercial property transactions. The EAT followed its earlier decision in Hunter that there can be no service provision change under TUPE if there has been a change in the identity of the client to whom the service is provided as well as a change o...
Under S139 (1) (b) (i) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 an employee is dismissed by reason of redundancy if their dismissal was wholly or mainly because their employer`s requirements for employees doing work of a particular kind has ceased, diminished or is expected to do so. The leading case of Safeway Stores Plc v Burrell [1997] IRLR 200 EAT confirmed that "it is necessary to look at the ov...
The 2011/2012 employment tribunal statistics have been published. The key findings are below: Employment Tribunals (ET) received an overall total of 186,300 claims during 2011-12, a 15% fall compared to last year. When compared with the 2010-11 data, there were falls both in single and multiple claims of 2% and 19% respectively. The number of jurisdictional complaintswas 321,800 in 2011-12,...
Changes are soon to be made to the present system of criminal records checks, including the merger of the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority to form the "Disclosure and Barring Service". The changes, made under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, were first set in motion two years ago when the government put an immediate halt to the requirement for individuals working with children or vulnerable adults to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority, insisting that the Vetting and Barring Scheme ( the "VBS") needed to be scaled back to "common-sense levels"....
In Crisp v Apple (UK), Mr Crisp had been employed by Apple (UK) and he was dismissed for gross misconduct having been found to have written a number of derogatory comments on a "private" Facebook page, outside working hours. One of his Facebook "friends" saw the comments, printed them off and obligingly passed them to the store manager....
The Government has launched a consultation to consider changes to the rules on collective redundancies....
Two new Immigration Resources are now available on Buddy: Right to work checking process - this is a helpful flowchart setting out when an employer should carry out checks in relation to prospective and current employees. Right to work checks - who is an employee? - Trying to establish who is an employee for the purposes of the preventing illegal working regulations is a common query. This reso...
With the worsening situation in Syria, it was not unexpected that the BBC reported at the end of last week that the head of the Syrian Olympic Committee - General Mowaffak Joumaa - has been banned from attending the London Games. However the controversy of the decision lies in the fact that the International Olympic Committee`s stance has been one of avoiding political interference - and it is th...
In Goldman v HMRC [2012] UKFTT 313 (TC,) the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) has held that a termination payment was a contractual payment in lieu of notice (PILON) and not damages for breach of contract. This was in despite of the employer failing to make the PILON in accordance with the employment contract. Mr Goldman had agreed the contractual term with the Company, a small computing company, th...
In the case of Mitchells of Lancaster (Brewers) Ltd v Tattersall it was decided that the use of subjective redundancy criteria was not considered to be unacceptable. Mr Tattersall was one of the five senior managers at Lancaster (Brewers) Ltd, who was unfairly dismissed after a flawed redundancy selection process, but within a 20% Polkey deduction. The Company appealed on several grounds, but th...