This long running case (Bull & Anor v Hall & Anotherr) hit the headlines this month when the Supreme Court gave its judgment on whether it was unlawful discrimination for Christian hotel owners to refuse a double room to civil partners, under a stated policy that they would only provide double beds to heterosexual married…
Cleeve Link Ltd v Bryla concerned the question of the enforceability of a clause seeking to recoup recruitment costs from an employee, and clearly establishes that an Employment Tribunal is entitled to consider whether or not such a clause is unenforceable as a penalty. It arose in the case of Ms Bryla, a care worker…
In March 2011 I commented on the uneasy interplay between insolvency law and employment law. At that time the question was whether highly contentious “pre-pack” administrations provided an opportunity to dispense with a workforce as well as most of the company’s debts by using a TUPE exemption. Oakland v Wellswood (2008) appeared to allow administrators…
Draft regulations for the forthcoming TUPE reforms have been published. The changes they are intended to make are: – To allow a transferee to start collective consultation with representatives of employees due to be transferred about planned redundancies before the transfer takes place, if the transferor agrees. This will require a good deal of co-operation…
Mrs Donnelly worked for the Environment Agency from 1992. She was on a flexitime contract. Towards the end of her time there she was disabled by osteoarthritis of the knees and spondylitis, which affected her back and her hip. As a result she found it difficult to walk far. This meant she had to change…
News about zero hours contracts continues unabated. After I reported last month that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development had conducted research suggesting that many people are happy with zero hours contracts, Vince Cable has performed the sort of volte face that seems to come easily to politicians by announcing that the crackdown on…
In Whittlestone v BJP the Employment Appeal Tribunal has taken another look at an issue which seems to recur from time to time – are workers entitled to minimum wage for hours spent asleep? Ms Whittlestone worked as a home care for an agency. By day she visited a number of service users at home…
European Community Directive 87/344/EC on legal expenses insurance gives policyholders the right to a free choice of representative in legal proceedings. Notwithstanding this, private individuals of modest means who look to legal expenses insurance to fund litigation (and many household policies include some form of cover) find that they are offered in house representation or…
Last May I commented on the Queen’s Speech and the removal of the presumption of self-employed status in LLPs. I pointed out at the time that almost invariably fixed share partners in LLPs were, in reality, employees in all but name so that there was little point in LLPs continuing to pretend otherwise. Notwithstanding (occasionally…
In a blog post last August I asked the question “what are zero hours contracts and how do they work in practice?”. I pointed out that there is no formal legal definition of a zero hours contract and it is therefore merely a description of a type of working arrangement that has become more popular…