A round up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: an unsuccessful age discrimination claim by a TV journalist; the first decision on trade union blacklisting; and an award for a chip shop worker who was dismissed for giving away chips.

The recent court martial (on the Daily Telegraph website) of the commander of a British nuclear submarine who crashed his vessel into a large rock provides a useful reminder that there are occasions when a single mistake can justify dismissal.

A round up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: an award of over £50,000 for a Croatian employee who was harassed; an unsuccessful unfair dismissal claim by a doctor who refused to work unless he had somewhere to sleep during night shifts; and a payout for sexual orientation discrimination for a pub worker after attempts were made to "de-gay" the pub in which he worked.

Myles Bebbington, a paperboy who lost his claim for unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal because he was not an employee of the newsagent, has now lost his appeal in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).

"The default retirement age should be abolished and public services and policies reshaped to promote extended working life." This is according to John Sibson of consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). A new report from PwC argues that the UK's "retirement schedule" must be "reset" (external website) to cope with the financial and demographic challenges posed by the UK's ageing population.

There is currently widespread speculation as to whether the Government will scrap the default retirement age. In this context, IRS - part of the XpertHR group - is conducting its 2010 benchmarking survey of retirement procedures, to investigate issues around the default retirement age, and explore employer practice in this area.

The recent case of City of Edinburgh Council v Dickson made the headlines (on the Metro website) because of the claimant's lurid conduct (watching pornography in his employer's public computer suite) and his unusual defence (that diabetes had brought on an episode during which he was not responsible for his actions). But the case is interesting for a different reason for employment law specialists: the employment tribunal made an order, opposed by the employer, that the claimant should be reinstated.

A round up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: compensation for a harassed female soldier; a decision on sickness during annual leave; and the resolution of a zero-hours contract dispute.

A round up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: hundreds of former workers in a caravan manufacturer who may not see the money that they were awarded by an employment tribunal; an alleged refusal by Corus to reinstate three workers who were dismissed because of their trade union links; and a receptionist in Cardiff who was sexually harassed by her boss.

To acknowledge the decrease in the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal, we’ve put together a table (subscription required) showing the rise, and now fall, of the maximum award since 1999.

When it’s got a slice of cheese on it, according to McDonald’s - which fired a Dutch employee for adding cheese to a hamburger. This, the company argued, turned it into a cheeseburger, and the employee should therefore have charged more.

A man has won an unfair dismissal case after claiming to have been bullied by his manager, who he alleged told him he had body odour. The tribunal dismissed the allegations of bullying but upheld the claim as a result of serious flaws in the employer's disciplinary procedure.

XpertHR's case reporting has been improved with the addition of a new service providing summaries of new employment decisions, as well as the full transcripts of the cases, to go alongside our more detailed monthly summaries on a particular area [subscription required]. We're keen to hear from you if there are any types of claim that you would particularly like to see reported.

XpertHR's new series of detailed summaries of employment tribunal decisions has continued with a look at five tribunal claims for pregnancy and maternity leave discrimination [subscription required].

A round up of links to news items on recent employment tribunal rulings, including: a successful unfair dismissal claim by Weston-Super-Mare pier staff who were made redundant after it was damaged in a fire; compensation for an engineer who was dismissed for failing to clock out for a hospital appointment; and a £115,000 payout for an NHS boss who was told that she was the "wrong colour and wrong culture" for Cumbria.

It was widely reported on Monday of this week (including on this blog) that Harriet Harman was going to make an announcement about the abolition of the default retirement age. Harman apparently told the Daily Mail that the default retirement age should be scrapped and that the Government was proposing a "massive public policy change". But where were the details of this policy change, and the plans for carrying it out?

Do you need to know about employment law in France? The latest European employment law guide added to XpertHR looks at key elements of employment law in Frances as it applies to: recruitment and selection; pay and benefits; employee rights; contracts of employment; training and development; equal opportunities; industrial relations; health and safety; and termination of employment.

XpertHR regularly publishes information on industrial relations law and practice across Europe - providing expert analysis of developments at European level and in individual European countries. In addition, other guides to national employment law in European countries include: the Netherlands; Italy; Germany; Greece; Poland; and Ireland. For ease of reference, we’ve rounded our European information up on one European employment law and practice page.

Remember that we want to provide information on the countries that are relevant to you in your HR role - so let us know which countries you’d like to see guidance on in the future.

Employers may be experiencing an increase in employee resignations as people’s thoughts turn to getting a new job in the new year. Although most resignations do not have the high profile status of that of Jonathan Ross’s from the BBC (see my colleague, Michael Carty’s post from 7 January), employers do, nonetheless need to be aware of the various issues related to employee resignation.

The default normal retirement age of 65 is likely to be abolished, according to reports on the Times and Telegraph websites today (11 January 2010). Harriet Harman, the Minister for Women and Equality, is to announce that the Government will "fast-track" its review of the normal retirement age. She is proposing that workers will have the option to work beyond 65 and will be able to ask to work part time or at home.

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including the reinstatement of a Territorial army soldier who was made redundant after he returned from Afghanistan, a successful claim by a park ranger who was dismissed for making a joke about the colour of a black colleague's legs, and an award to a woman whose husband did the same job for the same employer but was paid more than her.

There is nothing to prevent an employer from dismissing an employee on maternity leave whose job has become redundant. However, the employer must take special steps to offer any suitable alternative employment to her ahead of other employees or the dismissal will be automatically unfair.

Want to receive the answer to a frequently asked HR question every day? If you’re on Twitter, you can do so by following HRdailyquestion. The questions come from the popular XpertHR FAQs section, which contains over 1,000 frequently asked HR questions - and more importantly the answers.

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including a lorry driver who was unfairly dismissed after a row with a customer, a straight teacher who lost his sexual orientation discrimination claim, and a Northern Ireland industrial tribunal ruling on police officers' shifts.

The maximum unfair dismissal award will reduce from £66,200 to £65,300 from 1 February 2010.

The Employment Rights (Revision of Limits) Order 2009 revises the limit in line with the decrease in the retail prices index between September 2008 and September 2009 - this was -1.4%.

There was a one-off increase to the maximum week’s pay used to calculate certain awards, including statutory redundancy pay and the basic unfair dismissal award, on 1 October 2009. This rose from £350 to £380. The legislation that brought this one-off rise into effect excluded, for a single time only, the operation of s.34 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, which normally changes this limit, along with the maximum unfair dismissal award, on 1 February. On this occasion, the maximum of a week’s pay for these purposes will therefore remain at £380.

For further information see Maximum unfair dismissal compensation award to decrease.

Around 50 new model policies and documents have been added to XpertHR in 2009. But what have been the most popular? The XpertHR employment intelligence blog provides a round-up.

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including an employer that tried to pacify an employee who had been racially abused with a 15p pay rise, a hospital chef who was dismissed for eating a piece of garlic bread, and an estate agent who spent hundreds of hours watching pornography on his work computer.

As usual, 2009 was a busy year in the employment tribunals, courts and in the European Court of Justice. But what employment law cases can we look forward to in the next 12 months? Here are 10 significant employment decisions expected in 2010.

The Times (on its website) has used the recent example of Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst at a human rights organisation who was suspended when his employer found out that his hobby is collecting Nazi and other war memorabilia, to look at what an employer should do when an employee has an unusual or embarrassing hobby outside work.

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including a decision that a spiritualist was not discriminated against because of his beliefs, an £800,000 payout for a former News of the World reporter who claimed bullying, and £440,000 compensation for a council equalities officer who was dismissed.

A police trainer who argued that he was discriminated against because he believes in the use of psychics in police investigations has lost his substantive claim, says the BBC website.

A German court has given a suspended sentence to a bank employee who transferred around £7m from rich to poor customers, according to the BBC website.

XpertHR provides summaries of five employment tribunal decisions [subscription required] where individuals brought unfair dismissal claims in relation to a decision by their employer to make them redundant. They provide a useful summation of the mistakes that employers commonly make in a redundancy situation.

A police trainer who is arguing that he was dismissed because he believes in the power of psychics and their usefulness in police investigations is having his claim for religious discrimination heard by an employment tribunal (on the Daily Telegraph website).

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including a £190,000 payout to four redundant managers, a successful tribunal defence by Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty's restaurant group, and an unfair dismissal claim involving a missing barrel of beer.

Hewlett Packard is facing an unusual problem after seven IT workers in a Liverpool office won over £6m each in their workplace EuroMillions syndicate. The workers are said to have immediately resigned en masse after the news was broken to them.

A round up of links to recent employment tribunal rulings, including compensation for employees at a printing firm who were not warned of redundancy, the failure of Gloucestershire Police to make reasonable adjustments for a dyslexic police officer and an unfair dismissal claim by a delivery driver who was caught urinating in public.

Once employees have been given notice of dismissal by reason of redundancy, should employers sit back and be satisfied that they have complied with their obligations to inform and consult?

With the 2009 Conservative Party conference taking place in Manchester this week, and a general election looming, XpertHR looks at the employment law changes that an incoming Conservative Government might make.

It's been reported that Kevin Keegan, who left his post as Newcastle United manager in September 2008, has been awarded £2m after it was found that he was constructively dismissed (on the Guardian website).

To no one's great surprise, the number of employment tribunal claims related to redundancy went up dramatically for the period 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009, according to new Tribunals Service statistics (PDF format, 257K) (on its website).

The High Court has given its decision (PDF format, 206K) in the "Heyday case", the case brought by Age Concern challenging the default retirement age. The Court found that the default retirement age of 65 can be justified and is therefore lawful, but that there was a "compelling case" for raising or removing it.

To establish that the default retirement age set by reg.30 of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 was justified, the Government had to show that it was introduced to meet a legitimate social policy aim. The Court found that it met the aim of maintaining confidence in the labour market, and that it was a proportionate way of doing so. The decision points out that the default retirement age does not require employers to dismiss employees at a certain age, it only allows them to do so, and finds that it is designed to give employers and employees certainty for planning purposes.

A New York court is allowing a Broadway actor who performed in "Hairspray" to proceed with a claim for disability discrimination after he fell and injured his knee while performing in the show and was later dismissed.

Fifty-two year old lorry driver, Russell Carter, has been found guilty of murdering his boss and attempting to murder three of his colleagues. Carter believed that he was owed £3,000 in unpaid wages. He waited for his victims to arrive for work wearing surgical plastic gloves, and armed with a handgun, petrol, duct tape, cable ties and rope, before gagging them and ordering them to tie each other up, dousing them in petrol, and saying "I will kill you". Read more on the bbc or the Telegraph.

A browse through the archive of employment tribunal decisions shows that, not surprisingly, quite a few age discrimination cases involve redundancy. In the first in a new series of articles on tribunal decisions [subscription required], XpertHR has rounded up some of the more interesting cases on age discrimination in redundancy.

In May 2007, school nurse Susan Pope smacked her ten-year old son for swearing. Her 15-year old son called the police, and while they ultimately found no evidence of wrongdoing, two of her children were placed on the local social services child protection register as a result.

An employment tribunal has found that an accountant at healthcare company ProCare was unfairly dismissed after she was sacked for sending emails with whole sentences in capital letters and key phrases highlighted in colour, according to a report on the Daily Telegraph website.

Not content with claiming unfair dismissal in the employment tribunal, Shoesmith commenced judicial review proceedings earlier this year, alleging that Ed Balls, Education Secretary, exceeded his powers in the role that he played in her dismissal. The High Court has fast tracked Shoesmith's legal challenge and is set to hear her judicial review application on 7 October 2009.

Shoesmith's lawyers will argue that Mr Balls effectively directed Haringey Council to dismiss her without pay, and was influenced by media pressure. Read more on the Times website.

Employees of the christian bookshop chain SPCK who brought tribunal claims after being sacked by the shops' new owners, have accepted a substantial offer of compensation, according to USDAW, the union representing them.

The saga following the transfer of the business to a charity run by two American brothers could be seen as a bad practice guide for employers, showing how not to handle a business transfer, variation of contracts, dismissals or the response to subsequent tribunal claims.

Leslie Strathie, appointed chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs at the tail end of last year, has announced that she is commissioning a cultural survey to examine what lies behind low staff morale at HMRC, as revealed by a number of surveys (ePolitix website).

The head chef at Scottish football club Livingstone FC has successfully claimed constructive unfair dismissal because he was given instructions only in Italian, a language he doesn't understand. Following a takeover at the club by a new chairman, Angelo Massone, all business was carried out in Italian, leaving the English-speaking chef at a significant disadvantage.

Swine flu and the workplace - it comes as no surprise that many of the most frequently accessed FAQs on XpertHR throughout July were on this subject (see Swine flu - guidance for employers for up-to-date information and guidance). Other popular questions cover breaks for new mothers to express milk and the special rules for employees made redundant while on adoption leave. Most employers are aware of the laws protecting employees made redundant while on maternity leave, but remember that they apply to employees of either sex on adoption leave too.

Identical twins who have each served 50 years in the army after enlisting on the same day and having nearly matching careers are celebrating their retirement.

The review of the 65 default retirement age is to be brought forward by a year to 2010, as the Government attempts to adapt to the changing economic circumstances.

The case of Leslie Seldon, the solicitor who challenged his firm's decision to retire him at age 65, is being heard this week at the Court of Appeal. The case is important because it will hopefully give some clarification on when age discrimination can be justified. Mr Seldon was a partner in the firm and so the default retirement age did not apply (the default retirement age allows employers to set a retirement age of 65 or above without having to justify it - but it only applies to "employees", not partners).

Personnel Today is currently running a campaign for the abolition of the default retirement age (on the Personnel Today Editors' Blog), which allows employers to compulsorily retire employees at 65. There can't be many better arguments for its abolition than the story of Phyllis Self, Britain's oldest boss at 101 (on the Daily Mail website).

We recently noted that UK employers hit hard by the 2009 recession are exploring a range of measures to stave off redundancies as long as possible, from pay freezes to short-time working. But more radical responses are starting to emerge, with BT and the CBI leading the way.

Throughout June 2009 what were HR professionals asking? The top 10 most frequently visited FAQs on XpertHR in the last month include some recent additions to the site on the subject of gender reassignment and toilet facilities, and whether or not the entitlement to a 20-minute rest break arises after every six hours worked. These questions were suggested by subscribers.

Other questions in the top 10 look at workplace maternity rights for surrogate mothers and the women for whom they give birth, and dismissal where the employer has previously granted an employee’s request to carry on working beyond retirement age.

Well, spare a thought for 31-year old Sean Daley from Bicester who was shot by unknown gunmen in Kyrgyzstan where he was employed to run a struggling mill. Mr Daley was sacked by his Caerphilly-based employer later that same day. I suspect you'd be hard pressed to top that but would be interested in hearing from you if could... Read more on the bbc.

There has been a recent flurry of termination of employment relationships, as a result of disregard for employers’ dress codes put in place to promote health and safety.

The High Court is to hear the Age Concern and Help the Aged legal challenge to the 65 default retirement age on 16 July.

Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat was dismissed by Great Ormond Street Hospital after failing to examine baby P because he was "miserable and cranky". The 52-year-old paediatric consultant failed to spot baby P's broken spine that had been snapped "like a hinge" or his eight fractured ribs. He died two days later after being punched in the face. Dr Al-Zayyat is claiming that she was unfairly dismissed. The current ceiling on unfair dismissal compensation is £70,900 (basic award limit: £4,700, compensatory award limit: £66,200). Read more on the Telegraph website (external website).

The High Court has rejected Cheltenham Borough Council’s case against a former director who failed to disclose a history of depressive illness.

What did you expect to read about? The Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain?

The two May bank holidays were occupying HR professionals last month, prompting the question: are part-time workers entitled to bank holidays? Another popular question concerned how to deal with bank holiday entitlement for employees on maternity leave.

Other frequently asked questions focus on redundancy and alternatives to redundancy, including whether or not an employee’s salary is protected if he or she accepts a less well-paid position as an alternative to redundancy.

Photo: Valerie Everett

The Court of Appeal has decided that collective agreements between Rolls Royce and trade union Unite could use an approach that gave more points to employees with longer service when deciding who should be made redundant, in an important age discrimination ruling.

During April, the impact of the repeal of the dispute resolution procedures at the beginning of the month was evident, with the most frequently asked question on XpertHR concerning whether or not employers are obliged to deal with grievances raised by ex-employees.

Other popular FAQs covered maternity leave in connection with annual leave and car allowances, and whether or not it is acceptable to ask employees of foreign origin to communicate in English while at work?

Photo: Charles Chan

My colleague Sarah Welfare telephoned BERR today about the Budget one-off rise in the limit on a week’s pay for statutory redundancy pay purposes and was told the change would take place on 1 October 2009.

2009 Budget increase in statutory redundancy pay limit

In the name of entertainment, the Fox network apparently plans to make a reality TV show - Someone’s Gotta Go - out of letting employees of troubled small businesses decide which one of their colleagues will be laid off. Nice.

In the 2009 Budget, the Chancellor announced a “one-off” increase in the limit on a week’s pay for statutory redundancy pay purposes from £350 to £380. However, it is unclear when this will take effect, or even how the Government plans to effect the change - possible routes seem to include s.14 of the Work and Families Act 2006 or s.23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.

Employer instigates disciplinary process. Employee promptly raises grievance. Few employers will be lucky enough not to have come across this situation. In many cases their response is to put the disciplinary process on hold until they have dealt with the grievance - sometimes prolonging the issue for months. But is this really necessary?

The statutory dispute resolution procedures may have been repealed on 6 April 2009 - but don’t think you can forget about them just yet. Under transitional provisions, they continue to apply in certain situations, as David Shepherd (XpertHR’s head of content and technology) and I discuss in this month’s XpertHR Outlook Video. We also consider the 1 April increase in statutory annual leave entitlement from 4.8 weeks to 5.6 weeks, and the 6 April extension of the right to request flexible working to parents of children under the age of 17.

It’s always good to get out to a conference, sit in a room of HR professionals and hear exactly what’s concerning them - and yesterday’s IRS discipline and grievance masterclass at the Cumberland Hotel in London was no exception.

A prison officer in Leicester has been dismissed for gross misconduct after it emerged that he was using the social networking site Facebook to make friends with inmates and former prisoners.

The charity Working Families has recorded a significant increase in calls to its helpline related to redundancy and discrimination.

You wait forever for the employment tribunal statistics - and then two sets come along at once. Well, not exactly, as the figures for April 2008 to February 2009 provided to XpertHR by the Tribunals Service today are only provisional, and therefore subject to change. They do, however, give an indication of what the final figures are likely to look like.

Figures for the period April 2007 to March 2008 released by the Tribunals Service today show that the number of equal pay tribunal claims jumped to 62,706, up from 44,013 for 2006/07 - and in comparison to just 4,412 for 2003/04.

… leading, according to the Telegraph, to offers to continue the trend with baked CVs from potential successors.

The new Acas code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures [on the Acas website] has been approved by Parliament. The code, which comes into force on 6 April 2009, sets out the principles for handling disciplinary and grievance procedures after the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures on the same date.

Last week I mentioned we’d been gathering questions from employers on the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures on 6 April. The answers [subscription required] to the following questions have now been published on XpertHR:

Our latest XpertHR Outlook video is now live, and features managing editor Jo Stubbs and I discussing customers' questions on the right to request flexible working, maternity keeping-in-touch days, retirement and redundancy.

Angel on the HR Space forum makes a good point. And perhaps employers don’t always think about the business benefits of having a progressive approach to age in the workplace. We’re currently looking into commissioning something on this for our XpertHR good practice guides - watch this space.

We’ve been gathering together employers’ questions about the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures on 6 April, and the new Acas code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures. What have they been asking? Well, some of the most common relate to the processes to follow in redundancy dismissals and where a fixed-term contract expires without being renewed - situations not covered by the new Acas code.

Notes made at recruitment interviews and unsatisfactory job references resulting in an employment offer being withdrawn - does the prospective employee have the right to see them? And what about an employee who is permitted to work beyond retirement age, but whose position subsequently becomes redundant - will he or she be entitled to a redundancy payment? Out of the hundreds of HR questions on XpertHR, these are some of the most popular throughout February 2009.

In the latest XpertHR Outlook video, I ask managing editor Jo Stubbs some tricky employment law questions sent in by XpertHR customers on issues including redundancy pay, maternity,  TUPE and the age discrimination regulations.

Batman star, Christian Bale, gave superheroes a bad name when he hit the headlines for verbally assaulting photography director, Shane Hurlbut, on the set of the Terminator. Bale gave Gordon Ramsay a run for his money when he reportedly used the F-word 35 times in just over four minutes.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision in the Heyday challenge to the default retirement age in the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 is to be given on 5 March, according to the ECJ judgment schedule (external website).

An employer must state that it is contemplating dismissal in its step one letter in order to avoid falling foul of the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedure. In Zimmer Limited v Brezan (external website), the EAT held that a failure to do so would render any subsequent dismissal automatically unfair.

One of the most frequently viewed XpertHR FAQs during January 2009 concerns the topical question of which limit on the rate of a “week’s pay” should be used to calculate a statutory redundancy payment where the dismissal takes place shortly before the annual 1 February increase (this year, from £330 to £350), but the employee is paid in lieu of notice.

The sad case of Baby P provoked a strong response in the press with demands made for those involved to be sacked. However as anyone in HR will know “sacking” staff is a complex process requiring many boxes to be ticked as well as adherence to the serious matter of natural justice.

Employees at a Woolworths store in Jersey are petitioning after they discovered that they will not get the statutory redundancy payments to which their UK counterparts are entitled.

The landing page itself is accessible to non-subscribers, but most of the links are for XpertHR's subscription content.

More than 50 new model policies and documents have been added to XpertHR in 2008. But what have been the most popular? XpertHR's employment intelligence blog provides a round-up.

As mentioned in Employment law fact No.1, an anomaly exists in relation to termination of employment due to long-term incapacity and the employee’s entitlement to be paid during the notice period where he or she has exhausted all entitlement to sick pay.

With the current difficult economic times affecting many employers, it seems only natural that many of the top 10 most frequently visited FAQs on XpertHR throughout October concerned redundancy. Issues include refusal of alternative employment, a redundant employee seeking to leave before the expiry of his or her notice period, and whether or not the statutory maternity pay of a redundant pregnant employee can be paid as a lump sum.

HR professionals will no doubt be aware that the statutory dispute resolution procedures are to be abolished by an Employment Act in April 2009. One of the proposals to arise from the planned abolition is an extension of the definition of “relevant adviser” for compromise agreements, to include members of the CIPD. Members would not be able to be employed by the employer to act in this capacity.

One of the most frequently asked questions throughout July highlights the changes to rights during maternity leave affecting those with an expected week of childbirth on or after 5 October 2008 - the issue of payment of a car allowance during additional maternity leave. Other questions consider a requirement to take outstanding holiday during garden leave and dismissing an unsatisfactory probationer during the probation period.