Here is our latest Employment Law newsletter . We hope you will also visit our web site at www.oxford-employment-law.co.uk which now includes a comprehensive and regularly updated free employment law section available for you to use whenever and as often as you like to find answers to basic employment law questions. We will, of course, be pleased to assist you with individual advice when that is required.
Minimum Wage
3. Stress 4. State Pension Credit Scheme starts on 6th October 2004 5. Part-time workers 6. Overseas employees and unfair dismissal 7. Doctors
9. Local Authority ex-gratia payments to staff 10. Nannies (and other domestic staff) and Race Discrimination 11. Unfair dismissals during first year of employment 12. European Court of Justice procedure |
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Minimum Wage/2002 and 2003 increase and/or Minimum Wage/enforcement
2. ACAS Annual Report 2003
The
2002/2003 ACAS Annual Report was issued on
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
ACAS/Annual Report 2002-2003
3. Stress
A
recent case in the Employment Appeal Tribunal suggests that an employee will
have more difficulty in winning an employment related stress claim if he brings
it in an employment tribunal than if he brings it in the High Court or County
Court. As two bites at the cherry are not allowed, the result may be that
well-advised employees may choose to bring such claims in the Courts while
well-advised employers, if and to the extent that they can do so, may attempt
to point litigious stressed out staff towards the tribunals (Marshall
Specialist Vehicles Ltd v Osborne, EAT on 30th April 2003).
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Health & Safety at work/stress/a general note
4. State Pension Credit Scheme starts on
The
State Pension Credit will replace the current Minimum Income Guarantee (or
"MIG") as from
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Social Security benefits/minimum income guarantee
5. Part-time workers
Potentially good news for employers. In general the
Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, ensure that part time workers are entitled (pro rata)
to the same terms of employment as full timers doing the same job. In August
2003 one of the first important cases under the regulations came before the EAT
which upheld an employment tribunal ruling that retained firemen (ie part time
firemen) cannot claim parity of employment terms (pro rata) with full time
regular firefighters. Interpreting the wording of the regulations, the EAT held
that retained firemen are not employed under the "same type of
contract" as whole-time fire fighters and nor are they engaged in
"the same or broadly similar" work. Firemen are a special case but
even so this ruling does suggest that part-time workers may have more of an
uphill struggle than many thought in persuading a tribunal that they are
entitled to the benefit of the Regulations (Matthews and ors v Kent and Medway Towns Fire Authority and ors
EAT 2003)
For
more information on the above topic/s click on:
Part-time employees/2000 regulations/notes
6. Overseas employees and unfair dismissal
Whether
and in what circumstances an overseas employee of a company which also operates
in Britain can claim unfair dismissal in a British employment tribunal has been
confused after two apparently conflicting decisions of the EAT earlier this
year. An EAT ruling in early September 2003 provides some clarification and
suggests that if an employee works wholly abroad a British employment tribunal
probably does not have jurisdiction simply because the employer
carries on a business in England (Jackson v Ghost Ltd EAT on 2nd
September 2003)
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Unfair dismissal/employments not having unfair dismissal
rights/work ordinarily outside Gt Britain
7. Doctors
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Working Time Regulations/doctors and/or Employee/definition of
8. Dismissal - for trade union reasons or misconduct (and why does it matter)?
If
the main reason for dismissal of an employee is that he is a member of a trade
union or engages in trade union activities his dismissal is automatically
unfair. An employment tribunal must award him a minimum of £3,500 and the
normal qualification period for claiming unfair dismissal (at least one year's
continuous employment) does not apply. There was an example in August 2003 of a
case which may be useful for employers to note in that the EAT ruled against an
employee who claimed he had been dismissed because of his trade union
activities. The EAT agreed with the employer's contention that the main reason
for a trade union official's dismissal was his misconduct (South West Trains Limited v McDonnell EAT on 7th August 2003)
For
more information on the above topic/s click on:
Unfair dismissal/automatically unfair dismissals/taking part in
union activities
9. Local Authority ex-gratia payments to staff
Being
conscious that their employees are paid from public funds local authorities are
rightly cautious about making ex-gratia payments to staff (ie payments which
they are not contractually bound to make). The latest in a line of recent cases
which show that in many situations it can be lawful for a local authority to
make such ex-gratia payments is reported in this month's Industrial Cases
Reports (ICR) (Barking & Dagenham LBC v Watts [2003] ICR 2059, High
Court ChD)
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Redundancy/civil servants and public officials
10. Nannies (and other domestic staff) and Race Discrimination
Until
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Racial discrimination/domestic staff
11. Unfair dismissals during first year of employment
More potentially good news for employers. As is well known,
an employee cannot claim unfair dismissal until after he has completed 12
months' continuous employment. It has been generally believed, at least since
1999, that an employee who is dismissed without notice and for no good reason
shortly before the end of those 12 months can claim damages to compensate him
for his loss of the possibility of bringing an unfair dismissal claim as well
as damages for failure to give him notice. The EAT has recently held that this
general belief is wrong (Virgin Net Limited v Harper, EAT on
For more information on the
above topic/s click on:
Wrongful dismissal/damages for
|
Disclaimer The
information in this newsletter does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the
issues discussed. It is intended only
as a general guide. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in
relation to particular circumstances. 7200 The Quorum Telephone 01865 487136 Fax 01865 481482 Website www.oxford-employment-law.co.uk |