The trade union Unison has suffered a major setback in its challenge to the introduction of fees for people wanting to take cases to an employment tribunal. The High Court rejected its application for a judicial review because of a lack of evidence showing that fees were making it more difficult to bring cases to
A firm has been awarded more than £50,000 compensation from one of its employees who set up a rival business with his two sons. The court heard that the three had all worked together at the same glass recycling business. The father didn’t have written terms of employment until February 2013, when he signed a
A woman has failed with a claim of constructive unfair dismissal after she resigned following a disagreement about the lawfulness of a redundancy selection process. The woman worked as a human resources manager for a graphics company. She was ordered to complete a redundancy selection process by her superiors. She believed that the members of
A manager has lost a bullying and harassment claim after the High Court ruled that he could not be classed as an employee and so the company he worked for did not owe him a duty of care. The case involved a manager who operated a number of petrol stations under a retail business agreement
An employer has won an appeal against a tribunal’s decision that an employee could be classified as disabled during two periods of sick leave. The case involved an employee who had two lengthy periods of absence from work; the first was for work-related stress and the second for a combination of migraines, headaches and stress.
The government has announced that a £2m fund is to be spent on initiatives aimed at reducing the gender pay gap. The funding will go towards training, events and monitoring programmes for women to help them move from low paid, low skilled work to jobs that are high paid and high skilled. The measures will
A leading accountancy firm has estimated that companies and organisations in the UK could be losing up to £200m as a result of ‘shadow insolvencies’. A ‘shadow insolvency’ is a term for when a company becomes insolvent but doesn’t disclose any assets when it enters liquidation. This means there is no money to pay to
The government has set up a £2m scheme to help women into better-paid and higher-skilled jobs. There is a concern that despite more women being in work than ever before, some are still not being given the training or opportunities that are afforded to men in the same position. Closing the gender pay gap has
The Court of Appeal has ruled that a university was not negligent when it commenced disciplinary proceedings against a senior lecturer. The lecturer had written an employment reference for another employee who had gone on to find employment at another university. The employee didn’t perform as well in his new job as the employment reference
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has provided a ruling which offers some valuable guidance for employers taking on apprentices. Unless certain conditions are met, apprentices should be treated as fully fledged employees and paid accordingly. The case involved a riding school and livery business which took on a number of apprentices. They carried out tasks such