by Emma | Jun 26, 2018 | Newsletter
London General Transport Services was found guilty of harassment, discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal, after a female bus driver employee lodged a grievance about multiple counts of sexual harassment from her majority-male team, only to be told by her union rep the culprits were “probably joking”, and that she should lie about her relationship status to avoid future incidents. She was told that the drivers who had spoken sexually to her were “joking”, and suggested she “deter prospective harassers by saying that she was pregnant or married”.
She resigned from her post in September 2017, having never returned from a period of sick leave, and the tribunal upheld her claim of constructive unfair dismissal.
London General Transport Services was ordered to pay a total of £55,167.20, broken down into a financial award of multiple damages – including those for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal – of £23,612.89, and an award for injury to feelings for sex discrimination of £17,000.
by Emma | Jun 5, 2018 | Newsletter
The Employment Rights Act 1996 will be amended with effect from 6 April 2019 so that every worker will have the right to be given a written itemised pay statement at or before the time at which any payment of wages or salary is made to him or her.
Where an employer either fails to give a worker a statement or gives a worker a statement that does not comply with what is required, the worker will be entitled to make a reference to an employment tribunal to determine what particulars ought to have been included or referred to in a statement. The worker will also be able to refer the question of whether all the particulars which should be included or referred to in the statement have actually been included to an employment tribunal.
by Emma | May 15, 2018 | Newsletter
The Court of Appeal has held that continuing to work (in this case for two years) following the imposition of a contractual pay-cut will not always be treated as acceptance of those terms. Previously it was thought that an employee’s decision to continue working following changes to terms and conditions would be taken as a deemed acceptance of these new terms. It seems, that this will no longer be the case.
The Council decided to impose a two-year pay freeze in March 2011. The trade unions opposed this proposal, threatening industrial action and the Council asserted that the alternative was a large number of compulsory redundancies. The Council imposed a similar freeze in April 2013 and several hundred affected employees brought claims for unlawful deductions arguing that they had a contractual entitlement to incremental pay increases.
The Court of Appeal held that all the claimants were contractually entitled to the pay increases, and that they had not implicitly agreed to a variation of contract.
Following the decision in this case it is no longer sufficient to assume that an employee who has continued to work for some duration of time after the changes have been imposed is therefore deemed to have consented to those changes.
by Emma | May 8, 2018 | Newsletter
With 25th May in sight, we have highlighted the key things you need to know:
- Sensitive personal data under the Data Protection Act 1998 is replaced under the GDPR with “special categories of data”. For the first time this includes genetic and biometric data, as well as continuing to apply to data about health, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and sex life, religious and philosophical beliefs and political opinions, trade union membership, and in the UK, criminal offences.
- The criteria for giving valid consent are stricter and individuals can withdraw consent at any time. Employers are unlikely to find that they are able to rely on consent for processing data. Instead, employers will need to identify other lawful bases for processing personal data.
- Your data protection approach must be tailored to your organisation and your workforce, and crucially you must be able to demonstrate compliance.
- The GDPR increases the amount of information that must be included in privacy notices for them to be legally compliant. They need to be drafted in plain and clear language to meet fairness and transparency requirements. Privacy notices will not just be required for employees, but also consultants, workers, non-executives and board members and also applicants and volunteers.
- You can no longer charge a fee for subject data requests, and instead of 40 days to comply with a request, the time limit for compliance reduces to one month.
- Individuals will have greater rights, including rights to request to be forgotten or to restrict processing, and the right to data portability.
- All data breaches must be recorded, and most breaches reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours.
by Emma | May 2, 2018 | Newsletter
Injury to feelings claim band increases:
For claims presented on or after 6 April, the following bands will apply:
- £900 to £8,600 for less serious cases;
- £8,600 to £25,700 for cases that do not merit an award in the upper band;
- £25,700 to £42,900 for the most serious cases.
The most exceptional cases will be capable of exceeding £42,900
Also for a termination of employment on or after 6 April 2018, new rules apply to the way in which termination payments are taxed. Injury to feelings payments for discrimination unrelated to the termination can still be paid tax-free, but payments for injury to feelings connected with termination will only be exempt from tax if they relate to a psychiatric injury or other recognised medical condition Disability:
Following a couple of case decision you will need to be aware that a pre-cancerous condition may well be covered by the Equality Act 2010, and will therefore constitute a disability. Meanwhile, it will come as a relief to know that an employee’s belief that they are disabled will not be enough to deem knowledge of a disability on the part of the employer.
Data Protection Bill:
By now business should be well aware that The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is coming into force on 25 May 2018. It is intended to provide a comprehensive package to protect personal data. It will supplement the GDPR, implement the EU Law Enforcement Directive, as well as extend data protection laws to areas which are not covered by the GDPR. It applies GDPR standards but it has been amended to adjust those that would not work in the national context.
Once the UK leaves the EU, the Bill will help ensure that the standards of the GDPR are enshrined in UK law.
Notice of termination case: The Supreme Court has held that, if there is no express contractual provision in the contract of employment, written notice of termination served by an employer does not take effect until the employee has read it or had a reasonable opportunity of doing so.
The date that notice is deemed to take effect can have significant financial implications and employers therefore may want to consider including an express clause in their contracts of employment to be specific about when notice takes effect.
by Emma | Apr 24, 2018 | Newsletter
Following the decision to scrap tribunal fees, it’s no surprise to hear that tribunal claims are already up by 90%.
Many employees thought twice about putting a claim in when they had to pay fees, however with no fees to pay it seems employees are likely to “just give it a go”.
If you need assistance with any claims, or think that you may have a potential claim coming your way, then please contact us now.
