Downton Abbey celebrated and recommissioned and Upstairs Downstairs due to be revived on the BBC over Christmas. It had to happen. Not the peerage for Julian Fellowes but an employment tribunal case involving domestic staff. This time it wasn’t a lady’s maid and a footman being accused of spreading malicious rumours to their employer about a fellow member…
The status of a “salaried partner” can be important. This is so not only if a firm is in financial difficulty (as partners but not staff are generally liable for a firm’s debts) but also for employment law purposes (as partners, not being “employees”, do not have many employment law rights such as unfair dismissal rights). With the…
One of the problems with anti-discrimination law is that it sometimes results in “phoney claims”. The problem must, of course, be kept in perspective and overall the fact that the law is sometimes abused is a small price to pay for the valuable protections it affords to genuine victims. The problems of phoney claims generally centre around job…
Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the day of Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton – 29 April 2011, which according to Butler’s “Lives of the Saints” is appropriately the day before the feast of St Catherine – will be a public holiday to mark a “national day of celebration” (see Directgov website, 23 Nov 2010 –…
The Government announced in July that as from October 2011, with phasing in from April 2011, the current exemption from anti-age discrimination law which allows compulsory retirement of employees at age 65 or over is to be abolished. The fact that there is still no official response to the consultation on the proposal although it ended two months ago may…
The definition of a “collective agreement” (in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992) is “any agreement or arrangement made by or on behalf of one or more trade unions and one or more employers or employers’ associations and relating to one or more” of seven specified matters including, for example, terms and condition…
The loser in a case before an employment tribunal is often very tempted to appeal simply because they lost. A recent case is a salutary reminder of the important point that that is generally not enough – an appeal can only be made on a point of law. As most employment tribunal cases turn on…
Along with the rest of British anti-discrimination law the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 were replaced by the Equality Act 2010 with effect from 1 October 2010. Reflecting changes originally made in 2007, the new wording ensures that any philosophical belief is covered whether or not it is “similar” to a religious belief. This…
With its cosy sounding clever name, “NEST” (the acronym for the new “National Employment Savings Trust”) is in danger of distracting attention away from the more important “automatic enrolment” scheme of which it is a part, albeit an important part. The “automatic enrolment” scheme is due to start on 1 October 2012 and is designed to…