January 2012 Archives

A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 23 January 2012, including a traffic warden who has won his unfair dismissal claim after successfully arguing that he had been forced out of his job over his opposition to having to give out a minimum number of tickets.

Traffic wardens "pressured" into issuing tickets (on the Daily Telegraph website) A tribunal judge has warned that traffic wardens expected to issue a minimum quota of tickets were being coerced into acting in a "predatory and sometimes dishonest" manner.

We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter in the week beginning 23 January 2012, including Disney announcing that its customer-facing staff are now permitted to have beards (on Personnel Today's Guru Blog website).

Tribunal Watch has previously covered the history of hair in the workplace in some detail.

As part of its radical reform of the employment tribunal system, the Government has announced a pilot scheme for two regional mediation networks for small businesses, located in Cambridge and Manchester.

The Government is pushing mediation hard as one solution to the overburdened tribunal system and, if the pilot scheme is successful, we can expect more mediation networks across the country.

A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 16 January 2012, including union Usdaw proclaiming that it has won compensation of up to £67 million for more than 24,000 former Woolworths workers for the failure of the administrator to consult on redundancies.

Former Woolworths workers "get £67m compensation" (on the BBC website) The shopworkers union Usdaw has said it has won compensation of up to £67m for more than 24,000 former Woolworths workers, made redundant when the retailer collapsed at the end of 2008.

We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter in the week beginning 16 January 2012, including a musician who was suspended by the London Philharmonic Orchestra after signing her name to a protest letter to the Independent and is now taking a claim for discrimination on the grounds of belief to an employment tribunal (on the Guardian website).

As you’ll no doubt be aware, on 6 April 2012 the qualifying period for claiming unfair dismissal increases from one to two years. BIS has confirmed to various parties, including XpertHR, that the Government will recommend to Parliament that the change should only apply to employees starting on or after 6 April 2012.

In other words, employees who started before 6 April 2012 will remain able to claim unfair dismissal after one year of continuous service.

Government confirms that qualifying-period increase for unfair dismissal will not be retrospective

A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 9 January 2012, including an employment tribunal awarding an NHS worker dismissed from his senior position in the NHS close to £1m for race discrimination.

Former NHS manager awarded £1m in racial discrimination case (on the Guardian website) One of England's biggest hospital trusts has been accused of "institutionalised racism" after a senior manager it sacked won almost £1m in damages for racial discrimination and unfair dismissal.

We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter in the week beginning 9 January 2012, including more than 100 major businesses signing up to an initiative that proposes asking for CVs without the name or the school details of candidates to remove the risk of discrimination during the application process.

The Ministry of Justice has published statistics on the Tribunals Service's caseload for the three months to 30 September 2011 (PDF format, 410K) (on its website), including numbers on employment tribunal claims.

From July to September 2011, employment tribunals received 40,300 cases, a 30% decrease in overall claims to employment tribunals, compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The number of single claims decreased slightly (by 1%), while the number of multiple claims went down by 41% and was affected by the number of resubmitted airline cases received in July to September 2010.

A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the week beginning 2 January 2012, including the former office manager for a Scottish MP who has lost her unfair dismissal claim after being sacked for abusing her position to help her businessman boyfriend.

MSP's aide loses unfair dismissal claim (on the STV website) A former office manager for MSP Sandra White has lost her unfair dismissal claim after being sacked for abusing her position to help her businessman boyfriend.

We round up what caught Tribunal Watch's eye on Twitter in the weeks beginning 26 December 2011 and 2 January 2012, including:

• employment law key dates for 2012, with employment legislation coming into force and government consultations closing;
• key employment cases expected to be decided in 2012;
• important HR events in 2012 tracked in our HR Calendar; and
• our podcast looking ahead to 2012, discussing cases on appeal and forthcoming legislation.

A round-up of links to news items on employment tribunal rulings in the weeks beginning 19 December 2011 and 26 December 2011, including a headteacher who won her constructive dismissal claim after she successfully argued that she had been forced out of her job at a north London school.

Headteacher of London faith school wins dismissal case (on the BBC website) A headteacher who claimed she was bullied out of her job in north London has won her case for unfair dismissal.