Archive for November, 2007
By Sarah - Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
In the period between August 2006 and 31st July 2007, public sector employment tribunals had risen to account for 37% of employment tribunal claims. This was up from 30% the year before. This is despite the fact that the public sector only employ about 20% of the UK workforce.
These stats come as no suprise to us at PJH Law. Personally more than 1/3 of my employee tribunals have recently been for public sector employees. One explanation given for the increase is that the sector is heavily unionised. This does not tie in with our experience as to why they have risen.
Traditionally the public sector did not dismiss employees, you had a job for life but now when they do dismiss they do it badly. Whilst this may be a generalisation, typical failures are not following the statutory dismissal procedure, issues with whistleblowing, not allowing representatives of choice to disciplinary meetings or just bad decisions. When they do get it wrong they get it wrong big time, as the awards tend to be high due to the loss of a final salary pension scheme which is irreplaceable in the public sector.
Posted in Unfair Dismissal | 1 comment »
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By Liam - Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
The Court of Appeal have handed down their decision in Regent Security Services Limited v Power. The case concerns the TUPE Regulations and the rule that detrimental changes to transferring employees’ contracts are not enforceable. The question for the Court of Appeal was whether changes for the benefit of transferring employees were enforceable if related to a TUPE transfer.
Employers could be forgiven for taking the view that if detrimental changes can not be relied on by the employer, the employee should not be able to rely on beneficial changes. This was not what the Court of Appeal decided. Employees can take new beneficial changes connected to a TUPE transfer with one hand and take old more beneficial (unchanged) terms with the other.
It is worth mentioning that any changes, whether detrimental or not, that are not related to a TUPE transfer, are still enforceable. This means that following a change of job e.g. promotion, new terms can be offered and such terms should be enforceable.
Posted in TUPE | No comments »
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By Philip - Monday, November 19th, 2007
As some readers may know, the Attorney General and judges have power to stop named individuals from bringing legal claims if they are serial and vexatious litigants. One such was a Suresh Deram whose modus operandi was to make two job applications, usually to educational institutes, one in his own name the other in the name of a fictitional,Phil White.
He would then institute race discrimination proceedings, over 40 in total, and had collected over £200k in awards and settlements before the courts debarred him from bringing any further claims.
Well you can’t put a serial litigant down that easily. Mr Dreman has found a loophole and has brought proceedings in the Northern Ireland, Fair Employment Tribunal, equivalent to England’s employment tribunal. As every serial litigant knows (or does now) an order debarring proceedings in England does not apply in Northern Ireland.
However given that the application relates to alleged discriminatory treatment over 12 years ago, my money’s on a strike out based on being out of time.
Posted in Employment Tribunal Procedure, Sex/Race Discrimination | No comments »
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By Liam - Friday, November 16th, 2007
The EAT have recently considered the issue of whether an apprentice hairdresser was entitled to be paid the National Minimum Wage in HMRC v Rinaldi-Tranter. Rinaldi-Tranter worked for a Salon and was paid a training allowance of £50 per week. She also undertook training at college and was released from her duties for this purpose.
The National Minimum Wage Act expressly excludes first year apprentices from the NMW. However, second year apprentices can fall within the protection of the NMW if they are workers. The EAT in Rinaldi-Tranter held the apprentice was a worker.
The EAT was careful to point out that it had not decided that apprentices fall or do not fall within the protection of the NMW - the case was decided on the basis that the apprentice was a worker on the facts. However, it would seem that it will frequently occur that apprentices do enough work personally for their trainer to be classified as a worker and hence qualify for the MNW.
Employers taking on apprentices for more than a year beware - can you afford to pay your apprentice the NMW?
Posted in National Minimum Wage | 4 comments »
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