Archive for the ‘Age Discrimination’ Category
By Sarah - Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
The Court of Appeal rejected the appeal by Leslie Seldon against the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision that the firm’s retirement policy was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. We had previously brought you the story on our blog. Seldon had claimed age discrimination against his firm for forcing him to retire under the partnership agreement at 65. His case was backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The decision highlighted that law firms can oblige partners to retire at 65 provided they could prove a commercially sound reason for doing so. In this case the aim was to allow younger solicitors to take their place in the partnership. Sir Mark Waller who dismissed the appeal, said the actions of the law firm were justified because “it is in the interest of young would-be employees and actual employees that there should be a policy providing a greater likelihood of employment and reasonable prospects of promotion.”
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By Sarah - Thursday, July 29th, 2010
The Government has today announced a proposal for consultation that will see the default retirement age scrapped by October 2011. In the proposal employers will not be able to issue a notice to retire after April 2011. This will apparaently ease the administrative burden on employers in complying with the statutory retirement procedure.
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By Sarah - Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
In the case of Kraft Foods v Hastie reported this week in the EAT. Kraft (or presumably Cadbury) had a contractual redundancy scheme which had a cap to prevent employees from receiving more than they would have earnt had they stayed with the Company until retirement. In the Claimant’s case this reduced his payment by £14,000. The Claimant brought a claim for age discrimination.
At first instance the Tribunal found the cap disproportionately applied to those approaching retirement and it was unjustifiable. The Tribunal had some criticism of the Company in how it presented its case. The original reason for the cap was to prevent employees receiving “windfalls”. This was expanded on in the hearing and the EAT agreed that this was not helpful.
However, it overturned the decision of employment tribunal. It felt that since the purpose of the scheme was to compensate employees for the loss of expectation of remaining in employment to retirement and that this was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
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By Olivia - Monday, July 19th, 2010
roll on. Last week Selina Scott, after compiling a report alongside Age UK, asked the BBC Trust to address the issue of ‘ blatant and sometimes malign’ sexism and ageism against women at the BBC.
Today, Peter Sissons in a letter to the Telegraph, has claimed that this is just the ‘BBC way’ and he refers to ‘hundreds of demoralised people at Television Centre. Allegedly, the BBC treats men as badly as women, the young as badly as the old(er).
Is this why Wossie is channel hopping?
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By Olivia - Thursday, July 8th, 2010
In the EAT case of Kraft Foods UK Ltd v Hastie it has been determined that applying a cap in a contractual redundancy scheme preventing employees recovering more as a redundancy payment than they would have earnt if they remained in employment until retirement age is not unlawful indirect age discrimination. The EAT found that it is justifiable as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim i.e. the ‘prevention of a windfall’ defence!
Posted in Age Discrimination, Redundancy Payment | 2 comments »
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By Olivia - Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
It is reported in today’s Telegraph that the number of claims brought against the BBC for sex and age discrimination has quadrupled in the last two years. 12 sex discrimination cases in total have been brought in the past year alone, 9 the previous year and 3 the year before that. 3 claims of age discrimination have been brought in the past 3 years. A number of these cases have been high profile, namely those of Moira Stuart and Arlene Philips.
These statistics really need to serve as a wake up call to the BBC. For any organisation, 12 sex discrimination cases in a one year period is unacceptably high but for an organisation with a human resources function these are inexcusable. They need to be addressing their hiring and firing policies if they want to avoid such claims, and the attendant adverse publicity, in the future.
Posted in Age Discrimination, Sex/Race Discrimination | 2 comments »
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By Sarah - Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Many employers dread claims from unsuccessful applicants for roles and indeed some Companies have been the victim of serial litigants in this area. The EAT has given an interesting decision on this issue, which will be a blow to serial litigants who see such claims as pay day.
In the case of Keane, the Claimant brought age discrimination claims against 20 recruitment agencies. She was a 51 year old experienced accountant who had worked for nine years in a senior management role. In mid 2007 she applied for over 20 positions which advertised for recently qualified accountants for which she was clearly over qualified. After not receiving any job interviews she brought proceedings based on her age discrimination.
Some agencies settled immediately but 11 chose to proceed. 6 settled during the proceedings and the 5 that remained went to hearing. I am sure there is a lesson here for the early settlers about flood gates but the 5 won their case on the basis that Keane had not interest in applying for the vacancies but simply wanted to claim compensation and it awarded costs against her.
The EAT dismissed the appeal and said that the Judgment could serve as authority that a job application must be genuine before a statutory disadvantage can be suffered. Costs were to be assessed but each agency was said to have legal costs of £10,000 for each agency i.e. £50,000. Ouch expensive game to lose!
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By Nicky - Thursday, April 29th, 2010
A 61 year old legal advisor at the Police National Legal Database claimed he was discriminated against because a job he applied for required a law degree or similar qualification. Mr Homer claimed that employees aged 60 to 65 were at a disadvantage because they did not have time to complete a degree before retiring.
The Court of Appeal dismissed Mr Homer’s claim stating that the degree requirement was an inevitable consequence of his age, not a consequence of age discrimination.
However, we at PJH Law, would advise employers to proceed with caution in their job advertisements. In some circumstances high levels of experience may be considered acceptable alternatives to specific qualifications.
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By Olivia - Monday, April 12th, 2010
Following on from Nicky’s blog from last week, if you are interested in the progress of the Equality Bill you may wish to bookmark this specialised website which will be updated over the next few months. By way of a time check, the main provisions are expected to be in force by this October, the provisions relating to public sector equality duty and dual discrimination protection to be in force by April 20100 and the age discrimination ban in provision of goods, facilities, services and public functions to be in force by 2010.
Posted in Age Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, Sex/Race Discrimination | No comments »
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By Olivia - Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
October 2006 saw the introduction of new rights to assist older workers. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 prohibit unjustified age discrimination in the workplace and cover recruitment, training, promotion and dismissal.
Sounds good in theory but has it worked in practice? BIS have just published their Fair Treatment at Work Age Report (findings from the 2008 survey) which review the uptake of these new rights.
The results include the following:-
Only 1 in 5 aged over 60 experienced any problem at work compared to 1 in 3 of the general survey (covering all age groups);
3% of those over 60 experienced problems to do with retirement.
8% of those aged over 60 had experienced unfair treatment at work. Although age was cited as one of the reasons for unfair treatment, this was less than experienced in the 16-24 age group;
4% of those aged over 60 had experienced discrimination in the workplace. Although age was stated by this group as the main reason for discrimination, it is less than experienced in the 16 - 24 age group.
3% of those aged over 60 had experienced bullying or harassment at work compared with 5% in the main survey.
Interestingly, this does reflect our general observations on the subject, that older workers actually seem to experience overall fewer problems in the workplace than some of their younger counterparts. This is reflected by the fact that, contrary to expectations, it has been the young rather than the old who have exercised the new anti-discrimination rights.
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