1. National minimum wage reform The government is to propose to the Low Pay Commission that there should be a single national minimum wage rate for apprentices and 16-17 year olds, with the apprenticeship rate rising by just over £1 to match the rate for 16-17 year olds. 2. Employment status The government has launched[…]
National Minimum Wage: adult rate increases to £6.50; 18-20-year-old rate increases to £5.13; 16-17-year-old rate increases to £3.79; apprentice rate increases to £2.73. HMRC’s publicity surrounding the 2014 increases stresses that employers who fail to meet their obligations to pay the national minimum wage will face fines of up to £20,000 per employee. The Labour[…]
The Ministry of Justice has today published statistics on tribunal claims for the period April-June 2014. The figures show that the total number of single claims in the employment tribunal was down 70% on the same period last year. The Tribunals Statistics Quarterly also notes that the number of single claims received in April-June this[…]
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published a guide for employers on the new right to unpaid time off to accompany a pregnant woman to ante-natal appointments. The new right, which comes into force on 1 October 2014, is available to employees and qualifying agency workers. The new right is provided for in[…]
Employer Justified in Not Paying Enhanced Pay for Additional Paternity Leave
LATEST NEWS Sep 04, 2014
In Shuter v Ford Motor Co Ltd ET Case No.3203504/13 an employment tribunal has held that an employer did not discriminate by paying only the statutory rate of additional paternity pay to a male employee on additional paternity leave (APL) when a female employee on maternity leave would have been entitled to full basic pay.[…]
Claimant Suffering from Mental Illness should have been granted Adjournment
LATEST NEWS Sep 04, 2014
In U v Butler and Wilson Ltd the EAT has held that an employment tribunal erred by failing to grant a short adjournment of a hearing for the claimant, who suffered from a mental disability and was a litigant in person, to consider how he wished to pursue his case. Furthermore, having informed the claimant[…]
ACAS has published new guidance on such issues as tattoo’s, piercings and religious dress. You can read the guidance by going to: http://www.acas.org.uk/dresscode
In Cadogan Hotel Partners Ltd v Ozog the EAT has confirmed that awards for injury to feelings in discrimination cases are subject to a 10% uplift following the Court of Appeal’s decision in Simmons v Castle. It also held that an employer’s failure to deal with an oral complaint did not attract the uplift on[…]
In Hounga v Allen and anor the Supreme Court has held that a domestic worker could claim race discrimination, despite working illegally in the United Kingdom. The connection between the illegality and the statutory tort of discriminatory treatment was insufficiently close to bar her claim. Furthermore, in the view of the majority of the Court,[…]
In Kaltoft v Municipality of Billund (C-354/13) the Advocate General has given the opinion that obesity may amount to a disability for the purposes of the EU Equal Treatment Framework Directive (No.2000/78) but only if it is ‘severe’. The Advocate General thought it probable that only obesity with a body mass index (BMI) of over[…]