Trade unions and trade union recognition

New and updated

• Date:

  30 April 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Trade union's notice of continuous and discontinuous industrial action is sufficient

  The Court of Appeal has held that, where a union serves notice on the employer of intended industrial action, one notice is sufficient for both continuous and discontinuous industrial action. 

• Date:

  13 April 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  TUPE: Transferee not bound by transferor's post-transfer pay agreement

  In Parkwood Leisure Ltd v Alemo-Herron and others [2010] EWCA Civ 24 CA, the Court of Appeal held that, where the transfer of an undertaking occurs, and the transferring employees' contracts contain a clause referring to a collective agreement between the transferor and the relevant union, the transferee is not obliged to recognise wage increases agreed by the transferor and the union after the transfer has occurred resulting from negotiations to which the transferee was not a party.

• Type:

  FAQs

  Can a job applicant be rejected for employment on the grounds that they are, or are not, a member of a trade union?

• Date:

  1 March 2010

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Susannah Jarvis (associate) and Kate Williams (professional support lawyer), Addleshaw Goddard, analyse important recent rulings.

• Date:

  8 September 2009

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Industrial action: Gate Gourmet employees were fairly dismissed

  In Sehmi v Gate Gourmet London Ltd; Sandhu and others v Gate Gourmet London Ltd EAT/0264/08 & EAT/0265/08, the EAT held that, while the withdrawal by an employee of his or her labour will not necessarily justify dismissal, in a situation where large numbers of employees deliberately absent themselves from work in a manner that is liable to do serious damage to the employer's business, dismissal of those taking part in the action will be reasonable, even where the absence is not prolonged.

• Date:

  7 August 2009

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: Length-of-service criterion as part of redundancy selection matrix does not of itself amount to age discrimination

  In Rolls-Royce plc v Unite [2009] EWCA Civ 387 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a redundancy selection matrix set out in a 2003 collective agreement was not automatically rendered unlawful following the implementation of the age discrimination legislation in 2006.

• Date:

  22 November 2008

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: Length of service as part of redundancy selection matrix is lawful

  In Rolls-Royce v Unite [2008] EWHC 2420 HC, the High Court held that two collective agreements that set out an approach to redundancy giving points for length of service in the selection process were lawful under the age discrimination legislation.

• Date:

  15 September 2008

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Trade union indirectly discriminated against members

  In Allen and others v GMB [2008] IRLR 690, the Court of Appeal held that a trade union indirectly discriminated against a group of its members where its aim was to secure pay protection and future pay for employees, but its means of achieving this aim - persuading women with historic equal pay claims to settle them disadvantageously - were disproportionate.

• Date:

  13 May 2008

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  ECJ: Court rules that public contractors cannot be obliged to pay collectively agreed wage rates

  In a controversial ruling issued in April 2008, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that public authorities cannot demand that companies that are awarded works contracts must pay wages to all workers (including workers posted from other countries) that are in line with rates set out in collective agreements applicable to the place of work.

• Date:

  27 February 2008

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  TUPE case law update

  This article looks at some of the important judgments in the area of the transfer of undertakings over the past year.