The Employment Tribunal has ruled that a civil servant who was sacked after she looked up her neighbour’s private data on a government database was not unfairly dismissed. The case involved Louise Kelly, who said her behaviour had been caused by a lack of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Kelly had worked for the Department of
A GP’s receptionist has been awarded £45,000 after winning a discrimination claim over home working during the pandemic. The case involved Tracy Keown, who was classified as disabled due to her microvascular angina. She had worked at Staines Road Surgery since 2019 and was considered to be in the high-risk category during the pandemic. Her
The employment tribunal decision in Furlong v The Chief Constable of Cheshire Police reminds employers that the ‘tie-breaker’ exemption should not be used as a blanket policy to favour underrepresented groups with shared protected characteristics in a recruitment selection process. Doing so would amount to unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. In this case, a well-intentioned police
Constructive dismissal is where an employer has committed a serious breach of contract that the employee’s only option is to resign in response to the employer’s conduct. In order to bring a successful claim, the employee will need to show that: Their employer was in repudiatory breach of their employment contract; They resigned in response
Supermarket chain Tesco has successfully appealed an injunction that prevented it from terminating employees’ contracts in order to offer new contracts on less favourable terms. The issue goes back as far as 2007, when Tesco shut several distribution centres and opened new ones elsewhere in the country. The existing distribution staff were offered an enhanced
A teacher who was made to express her breastmilk either in an unhygienic bathroom or in her car was a victim of harassment related to sex, a judge has ruled. The case involved Ms T Mellor, who was a teacher at the Academy Trust at Mirfield Free Grammar School. Mellor had her first child in
One in five employers want to introduce a ‘no jab, no job’ policy over the next year, according to a poll carried out for Acas. Acas commissioned YouGov to ask British businesses about whether they plan to make it a requirement for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition of employment. Acas Chief
The Employment Tribunal has ruled that a former employee was subjected to direct race discrimination after a client demanded that only “white female croupiers” deal for him. The case involved Ms Semhar Tesfagiorgis, who worked for Crown London Aspinalls for over 13 years. The casino’s patrons were wealthy individuals and the respondent kept records of
Introduction Ikea, Ocado, Next and Morrisons along with several other large employers have recently announced that unvaccinated UK employees, without a valid medical exemption, who take time off work to self-isolate will not be paid their normal ‘day rate’. Instead, they will be paid the legal minimum Statutory Sick Pay rate of just £96.35 a
A forklift operator who was sacked for attending work after his son contracted Covid has won his claim of unfair dismissal. He said he believed his son was just faking symptoms. David Lewis had worked for The Benriach Distillery Company for 23 years with a clean disciplinary and attendance record. In February 2021, his line