April 2014 #149 – Law Journals

Flexible Working: Extended rights, extended risks

The forthcoming expansion in the right to request flexible working will create a new set of legal and practical challenges, warns Phil Allen ‘As the right to request flexible working is extended, this will throw up the challenge of how to deal with conflicting reasons for requests.’Today, flexible working arrangements are common in most workplaces …

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Discrimination: Illegal contracts and harassment claims

An employee who did not have a work permit will not be barred from bringing a claim under the Equality Act, reports Kate Barker ‘The tribunal noted that, as in Vakante, this [Wijesundera] was a situation where the employment situation was unlawful “from top to bottom and from beginning to end”.’ In Wijesundera v Heathrow …

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Disability Discrimination: Managing mental health at work

Dominic Holmes considers recent case law developments on disability discrimination and dealing with mental impairments in the workplace ‘Once the employer knows that an employee is disabled, it is under a duty to take such steps as are reasonable to avoid any substantial disadvantage suffered by the employee in the workplace.’According to research conducted by …

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Fixed-Term Employees: The consultation question

Helen Burgess reviews a recent case on whether the termination of a fixed-term contract must inevitably be a redundancy dismissal ‘The union argued that the fixed-term employees were dismissed as redundant and therefore the university should have consulted their representatives about their dismissals as the collective consultation obligations in s188 were triggered.’ In a case …

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TUPE: An eighties vibe

Helen Cookson examines a recent Court of Appeal decision on the harmonisation of employees’ terms and conditions after a business transfer ‘The Court of Appeal has confirmed that it will not be possible to harmonise terms and conditions following a transfer if the affected employees are not subject to a restructuring, or other similar process, …

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Dispute Resolution: Early conciliation scheme launches

Jo Pairman analyses the potential impact of a new scheme requiring Acas to be involved before claims can be issued in the employment tribunal ‘There is no requirement to particularise the claim in the form. Neither is there an obligation to provide these details to the Acas conciliator or to the respondent directly. This potentially …

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Tribunal Fees: A short-lived victory for the government?

The future of fees for bringing a claim in the tribunal remains uncertain despite the failure of Unison’s judicial review proceedings, explains Geoffrey Mead ‘Will the government reduce the level of fees or will it change the remission system? The government is perhaps more likely to change the level of fees than the remission system, …

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Post-Employment Victimisation: Saying one thing, meaning another

The Court of Appeal has found that the wording of provisions in the Equality Act was a drafting error, write Kirsti Laird and Clare Davis ‘The court has effectively re-written the law to say almost the exact opposite of a lay person’s interpretation by concluding that the original drafting had to have been an error.’ …

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