A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 23 May 2011, including the award of nearly £10,000 to a Laura Ashley employee after she was discriminated against on the ground of her sex.
Laura Ashley employee awarded £9,000 for discrimination (on the BBC website) A Northern Ireland Laura Ashley employee has been awarded nearly £10,000 after she was discriminated against on the ground of her sex.
We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter this week, including initial reaction to Sharon Shoesmith's successful appeal (on the BBC website) against the rejection of her application for judicial review of her dismissal over Baby Peter's death.
Note: The full transcript of the Court of Appeal decision is available on the BAILII website.
You can follow Tribunal Watch on Twitter. Have we missed something interesting on Twitter? Tweet us or leave a comment.
In one of the more bizarre cases to turn up recently, an employer just about got away with using secretly recorded CCTV footage to dismiss five employees caught urinating on company property on numerous occasions, in one of XpertHR’s latest tribunal reports.
The claimants worked at Fine Tubes Ltd’s factory in Plymouth. In July 2009, a maintenance fitter, Mr Roisetter, got his hands covered in urine when working in an inspection pit. Although the claimants were not suspects, this incident started an investigation that resulted in the managing director, Mr Day, authorising some limited CCTV surveillance to determine how widespread the problem was.
On being presented with CCTV evidence that urinating was taking place away from the toilets, the company installed covert CCTV equipment to catch the culprits. The motion-activated cameras were in operation from July to September 2009. They recorded staff going outside to smoke and use their mobile phones. Eight employees were also recorded urinating in outside areas on the employer’s premises, three of whom were recorded urinating only once. However, the five claimants were found to have urinated outside on numerous occasions.
The company distinguished between those caught urinating once and those recorded on more than one occasion. The three employees who were filmed only once (and who offered no excuse and showed genuine remorse) were given final written warnings. The other five were dismissed for gross misconduct, and claimed unfair dismissal.
Another week, another allegation of religious discrimination in the workplace supported by the Christian Legal Centre. In this well-publicised case (on the Daily Telegraph website), a GP has been warned about his future conduct after a mother complained that the doctor had abused his position by "pushing religion" on her son.
Dr Richard Scott says that he fears losing his job after an adult patient's mother complained that the way in which Dr Scott raised religion with her son left him "distressed" and did "not meet with the standards required of a doctor". Dr Scott says that he raised the issue of religion in a sensitive manner when all medical options had been exhausted, in a "consensual discussion between two adults".
The General Medical Council has sent Dr Scott a letter accusing him of "harassment", which has led him to declare that he will appeal against this being placed on his employment record, even though this could result in him being struck off. However, the doctor has admitted that he has "shared his faith" with thousands of patients in the past and received "a handful of complaints" about his actions.
We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter this week, including astonishment at an EAT decision on the statutory retirement procedure that, if the employee submits an invalid request, there is an implied duty on the employer to inform the employee of the essential conditions for a valid request to be made.
You can follow Tribunal Watch on Twitter. Have we missed something interesting on Twitter? Tweet us or leave a comment.
A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 16 May 2011, including a whistleblowing midwife who showed that she was forced to quit her job after being bullied by colleagues.
Whistleblowing midwife in tribunal victory (on the This Is Surrey website) A whistleblowing midwife who complained she was forced to quit her job after being bullied by colleagues has won her case for unfair dismissal.
Woolworths - Australia’s largest retailer and employer - has sacked eight employees for “planking”, reports the news.com.au website, which it considers a breach of health and safety. For the uninitiated among you, planking is where you lie down with your arms at your sides and photograph it (well, probably someone else has to photograph it). Crucially, the act has to be performed in an unusual public place (the more unusual the better). The report shows an alleged picture of a sacked Woolworths employee planking, and you can see more exotic examples with a quick Google search.
According to the report, Woolworths employees were sacked for planking on:
Some of the planking was photographed and put onto Facebook, where the company discovered it. Woolworths has said that “it’s not about being the fun police, it’s about making sure people are looking out for their own safety”.
I’ve yet to see any planking + employment related stuff in the UK, although this story does remind me of the Facebook “lying down game”, for which hospital staff in Swindon were suspended a couple of years ago.
A former prison officer is claiming race discrimination and unfair dismissal after complaining that he was not allowed to wear his Sikh ceremonial dagger on duty at the prison in which he worked, in the latest strange case involving religion in the workplace to hit the headlines (on the Burton Mail website).
According to the report, Mr Dhinsa had been a prison officer at HMP Dovegate, a category B prison, for only three weeks and wanted to wear the kirpan, which is a long ceremonial dagger worn as a religious symbol by some Sikhs, while working in the prison. Not surprisingly, he was refused permission, with his employer citing the health and safety risks. Both the Ministry of Justice and Serco Ltd, which runs the prison, defended Mr Dhinsa's employment tribunal claim.
The Government's major consultation on "modernising workplaces" contains several proposals that will have a big impact on employment tribunals, not least the controversial plan to give them the power to order employers to carry out equal pay audits.
As well as proposing "an entirely new system of parental leave and pay", the Government has sprung a surprise by setting out its plans to require tribunals that have "found an employer to have discriminated because of gender in relation to contractual terms or non-contractual pay matters to order that employer to conduct a pay audit".
The consultation suggests that tribunals should be able to order employers of any size to carry out an equal pay audit, although an audit might not be required if:
There have been a number of news stories involving the display of religious symbols in the workplace recently, but surely there are none more strange than a council's decision to order a taxi firm to require a driver to remove a cross from his car because a schoolboy was offended by its apparent "phallic" shape (on the Daily Telegraph website).
Whether the 15-year old schoolboy was serious or making a complaint "for japes", what doesn't seem to be in question is that the taxi company was asked by the local council to ensure that the object was removed after being told that the boy had been offended by it. The boy, who was taking a taxi to school (who takes a taxi to school - what's wrong with the bus?), is also said to have complained about the man's driving.
We round up the less than enthusiastic reaction on Twitter to the latest announcement on the Government's major employment law review, which will assess compensation for discrimination, collective redundancy rules and TUPE.
You can follow Tribunal Watch on Twitter. Have we missed something interesting on Twitter? Tweet us or leave a comment.
A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 9 May 2011, including the clearing of an Andrew Lloyd Webber theatre group over a stagehand's unfair dismissal claim.
Andrew Lloyd Webber theatre group cleared of unfair dismissal (on the Daily Telegraph website) A theatre group owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer, has been cleared of unfair dismissal by an employment tribunal after a worker accused the Really Useful Group of unfair dismissal and breach of contract.
If you turned on the interweb yesterday, you couldn’t fail to see at least one story about Ian Faletto, a station manager at Lymington station who was, he claims, sacked for removing a shopping trolley from a track. According to the Metro report, Mr Faletto claims that he was trying to prevent a rail accident. Although it did not name Mr Faletto, South West Trains confirmed that an employee was dismissed for a serious breach of safety.
According to Mr Faletto, when he saw the trolley on the tracks he rang the signal box to ask the power to be shut off, and went down to remove the trolley and “a few other small pieces, such as tin cans”. It doesn’t sound like he was in a particular hurry. Unbeknown to Mr Faletto, the power wasn’t actually shut off, so it’s pretty lucky that he didn’t fry himself while tidying up the line (unlike the fate that would most probably befall my desk neighbour at work, who said that he’d be inclined to “test” it in some unspecified manner). Fortunately, reports the BBC, Mr Faletto used a wooden broom handle.
Mr Faletto seems to be very well known in his community, having served as the station master for 27 years. According to the Telegraph report, Lymington residents say he has spent “thousands of pounds” of his own money on flowers, magazines and sweets to make the station more welcoming, and has put in “thousands of hours” of unpaid overtime. He certainly sounds dedicated.
Hollywood “power couple” Pitt and Jolie are being sued in France by a former secretary at their southern Provence chateau, according to the Telegraph this morning. The employee in question (who is currently anonymous due to confidentiality clauses that she signed) claims that she was sacked by a manager at the “sprawling” countryside estate because her sickness absence was detrimental to the “smooth-running” of the property.
Pitt (A River Runs Through It and Seven Years in Tibet) and Jolie (Cyborg 2 and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) are in France for the Cannes Film Festival, which is why the employee’s lawyer - Emmanuel Ludot - is publicising the issue now. He says that he hopes Brangelina will be “faithful to their reputation for humanitarian causes”. Even if his client does have a good claim, I’m not sure this ranks alongside the couple’s genuinely humanitarian work through their Jolie-Pitt Foundation, but I suppose he’s just doing his job.
A verdict is due from the industrial tribunal in Draguignan, southern France, in June.
There is no evidence that the Government's proposals to increase the qualifying period for bringing an unfair dismissal claim to two years will increase recruitment levels and the plans may have the unintended consequence of giving rise to more discrimination claims, says the Equality and Human Rights Commission in its official response to the Government's tribunal reform proposals (on the EHRC website).
The EHRC says that it is not convinced that extending the qualification period for unfair dismissal is justified in the absence of more compelling evidence that it will have the intended effect of encouraging employers to hire more staff. It points out that widening the gap between eligibility for unfair dismissal protection and the day-one protection against discrimination may have "unintended and perverse consequences", such as discouraging employers from hiring those considered more likely to have a discrimination claim. It may also result in additional discrimination claims, which are generally more complex, being brought by employees who consider they have been treated unfairly.
Once I was forced to wear a Stereophonics t-shirt at work (in a record store), but even the massive ignominy of that pales in comparison to the ordeal of employees at leading Australian fashion retailer General Pants Co. (which I’m going to refer to as General Pants), who have been asked to wear “I Love Sex” badges as part of a “racy” (and ill-advised) new campaign, reports the Couriermail website.
The company’s campaign is apparently called “I love sex! & fashion”, which brings to mind French Connection’s puerile “fcuk” branding. Rather worryingly, the report states that General Pants’ campaign is designed to attract teenage shoppers. After numerous complaints in the campaign’s first week, the company has censored store posters of semi-naked women and similarly undressed mannequins.
But the badges remain, and female staff are understandably not very happy about wearing them, saying that they are “degrading”, “embarrassing” and “demeaning”. The communications manager for Ksubi (one of the brands stocked by General Pants) is cited as saying that the campaign had been carefully thought through before it was launched, and that it is “fun and modern” .
We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter this week, including news that the Met intends to hold PC Simon Harwood's gross misconduct hearing relating to the death of protester Ian Tomlinson in public.
You can follow Tribunal Watch on Twitter. Have we missed something interesting on Twitter? Tweet us or leave a comment.
A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the weeks beginning 25 April 2011 and 2 May 2011, including a butler who has lost his claim that he was unfairly dismissed for serving dinner early.
Butler not dismissed for serving dinner early (on the Bicester Advertiser website) A butler has lost his bid for compensation from a multi-millionaire over allegations that he was sacked for serving dinner an hour early.
In a case that has attracted a great deal of publicity, a teacher sacked for publishing a novel about her pupils - containing sexual references and fantasy” - has lost, by a majority, her unfair dismissal claim, in one of XpertHR’s latest tribunal reports.
Miss Rustamova worked at Calder High School and, as a means of engaging a group of troubled students known as “the commie boys”, in 2008 wrote a novel that featured the pupils as protagonists. The book also included her under the guise of “Miss Rusty”, and other pupils and school staff. The first chapters of the book were approved by the headmaster, Mr Ball. The book contained:
Things went sour when Mr Ball discovered in January 2009 that the finished book had published and available on the internet since the previous summer. Mr Ball was, apparently, happy for copies of the book to be given to the commie boys, but not for it to be downloadable from the web. The school ultimately dismissed Miss Rustamova on a variety of charges that included bringing it into disrepute. The case was picked up by the national media, and demonstrations took place in the school’s community in support of Miss Rustamova. She claimed unfair dismissal.
I love going to the cinema (mobile phones, endless car adverts and back-of-seat-kicking aside), but what I don’t love is the crazy prices they charge for food and drink. I extremely reluctantly paid nearly £3 for a bottle of water the other day in Richmond Odeon. It seems I’m not the only one who feels like this - according to the Birmingham Mail, a customer’s demand for a refund on a ridiculously expensive bag of crisps led to a cinema manager’s unfair dismissal.
Apparently the manager, Mr Carter, was sacked by Vue Cinemas after a colleague used his pin number to refund the crisps (which cost £2.70 - we’re talking Waitrose prices here) without his knowledge. The company considered this a breach of its policies, and dismissed him for gross misconduct. The Mail’s report doesn’t make it clear on what grounds Mr Carter’s unfair dismissal claim was upheld, but he was awarded over £16,000 compensation.
We’ll endeavour to write up the tribunal decision in due course, if we can get our hands on it.
This morning’s media is awash with the news that a celebrity chef has - according to the sensationalist headlines - “won” a “gagging order” to prevent the press identifying all parties in a claim brought against him or her by two former employees. One of these is a woman claiming unfair dismissal, whistleblowing and sex discrimination. The other is, apparently, the male former chief executive of the chef’s company, who has brought claims for unfair dismissal, age discrimination and unpaid wages.
Rather unsurprisingly, outlets such as the Daily Mail and Express are (respectively) asserting that this is “the latest example of a major public figure remaining anonymous thanks to creeping privacy rulings by judges”, and that “the ban will fuel the outcry about the restrictions on freedom of speech in the growing number of super-injunctions granted to high profile figures”.
But let’s look behind the super-injunction-bandwagon headlines, starting with the legal position. It’s not entirely clear from the reports what sort of order has been made, but it appears to be a temporary restricted reporting order (RRO). Tribunals have the power and discretion to make this sort of order in cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct (which seems to be the reason here) or disability discrimination cases involving evidence of a personal nature that might cause significant embarrassment to the claimant if reported.
The effect of an RRO is to prevent the identification of some or all of the parties involved in the proceedings. Here, it appears to cover all three parties. Maybe the sex discrimination allegations involve the male claimant in some way, or perhaps his identification would lead to the identities of the chef being revealed. A likely explanation for the RRO is that the case involves sensitive and personal facts and allegations, and the woman doesn’t want to be identified at this stage. Obviously, the chef is hardly going to contest such an application.
The media is obviously keen to portray this case as yet another example of a high profile personality getting their own way in the courts to protect their business and reputation. But I don’t think that’s the case here. The reports actually reveal that the female claimant herself applied, along with the chef, for the RRO (although it was resisted by the male claimant). Judging by the facts as reported, this simply isn’t comparable to the super-injunctions that have recently attracted so much adverse press. As I understand it, RROs cannot be made to protect the reputation of a company or a corporate body.
The Christian Legal Centre is providing free legal support in over 50 cases in which individuals with Christian beliefs are claiming religious discrimination, reports the Guardian website.
The Christian Legal Centre, which depends on Christian lawyers working for it on a pro bono basis and donations from the public, takes on cases where Christians believe that they have been the victim of anti-Christian policies, often allegedly perpetrated by their employer. The Christian Legal Centre says that it does not ask clients for money, leading to claims by employees who would not otherwise bring a religious discrimination claim because of the financial risks.
As the Guardian says, the latest case that the Christian Legal Centre took up was that of Colin Atkinson, an electrician who was threatened with disciplinary action by his housing association employer after he displayed a Christian cross in the window of his company van. The housing association later backed down and allowed Mr Atkinson to continue to display the cross, after the story received some intense scrutiny from the national press.
We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter this week, including a High Court decision in which the European Convention on Human Rights was not engaged in internal disciplinary proceedings where the employee was not, as a result, deprived of the right to practise his profession.
You can follow Tribunal Watch on Twitter. Have we missed something interesting on Twitter? Tweet us or leave a comment.
The Government's guidance on matters to be taken into account when determining questions relating to the definition of disability (PDF format, 770K) (on the ODI website) under the Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 May 2011.
The new guidance replaces the previous guidance that applied under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and reflects the revised definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010.
The definition of disability under s.6 of the Equality Act 2010 is a key provision in disability discrimination. Cases can be halted at the early stage if the claimant cannot showed that he or she has a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
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