A woman who was brought over from India to work in Britain for as little as 11p an hour has been awarded £184,000. It’s thought to be the first successful case in the UK involving “low caste” discrimination. Permila Tirkey and her family are Adivasi people from Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. They are
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that if employees don’t have a fixed place of work then the time they spend travelling from home to their first job of the day should be classed as work time. The same principle applies to the time spent travelling back home after the last job of
Temporary workers have the right to be informed of vacancies at the company employing them but that doesn’t automatically entitle them to be interviewed for any particular post. Employers are also justified in giving preference to permanent employees who are facing the threat of redundancy. Those were the findings of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in
Machins Solicitors LLP are pleased to announce that they have been recommended in The Legal 500 2015 United Kingdon in the following eight practice areas: South East Corporate and commercial – Corporate and commercial – Beds, Bucks, Herts, Middx South East Dispute resolution – Commercial litigation – Beds, Bucks, Herts, Middx South East Dispute resolution
A woman who said she earned less than male colleagues at a boarding school and was verbally abused by pupils has won her claim of sex discrimination. Hannah Miller worked as a science technician at Tonbridge School in Kent. She claimed that a man doing the same job as her was paid more yet she
A company that sacked an employee who made abusive comments on Facebook and claimed he’d been drinking on duty had not acted unfairly. That was the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Scottish Canals and one of its employees. The issue arose after the employee posted comments that he had been
The summer holiday season is drawing to a close. Employees have exhausted their holiday entitlement and are counting down to Xmas. Employers finally get a break from juggling workloads and arranging cover – but what about the employees who could not take their holiday because of sickness? Two scenarios that employers can face: 1. Your
A hotel chef has won £11,000 compensation after he was “unfairly dismissed” for biting two police officers during a drunken row. The Employment Tribunal heard that James Harvey was the head chef at a hotel in Guernsey. Last March, he got into an argument with his girlfriend at the hotel and was accused of assaulting
The government has outlined plans to end the pay gap between men and women within a generation. It says the first step is the introduction of the living wage, which will be set at £7.20 per hour from April 2016 and rise to more than £9 per hour by 2020. This will be particularly helpful
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has provided a ruling clarifying how long an employee is entitled to wait before taking annual leave accrued while he was off work due to illness. The case involved an employee who had been absent on sick leave from April 2010 until his employment ended in February 2014. In July