If an employee has to move to part-time work due to his or her disabilities, how does that affect the calculation of his or her pension rights on taking ill-health retirement? The Supreme Court considered that issue in a guideline discrimination case. The employee concerned
When considering allegations of workplace gross misconduct, it is often not enough simply to establish that a forbidden act occurred, without going on to discern the reasons for it and whether those reasons are linked to a disability. A tribunal made that point in finding
The High Court has ruled in a guideline case that a group of food and drink delivery drivers who can substitute others to perform their roles are not ‘workers’. The decision spelt defeat for a trade union which had sought recognition in order to represent
Mental or physical conditions that give rise to a tendency to commit various criminal acts are excluded from the protection that normally applies to disabilities under the Equality Act 2010. An instructive case on point concerned a council worker who walked out of a shop
When it comes to workplace disciplinary proceedings, slavish following of rules is no replacement for common sense. In a case where the latter was sadly lacking, a bus driver who was sacked after failing a random drug test succeeded in unfair and wrongful dismissal claims
If an employee goes the extra mile and works outside normal office hours, does the additional income received form part of his or her pensionable earnings? The Court of Appeal analysed that issue in boosting the redundancy compensation and pension entitlements of a civil servant
Many businesses rely heavily on Home Office licences that enable them to sponsor the entry into the UK of skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area. As a High Court case showed, however, such licences are a privilege, not an entitlement, and can be
Making reasonable adjustments to cater for employees’ disabilities can be tricky and few employers can have experienced more of a challenge than an NHS trust faced with a hospital worker’s severe phobia of blood and needles. The occupational therapist, who taught patients carpentry skills in
Statistical evidence, however striking, is rarely enough to prove discrimination in the workplace. However, the fact that there was not a single non-white manager of a retail chain’s 81 stores in a particular region certainly had a persuasive impact on an Employment Tribunal (ET). The
Many employers provide for benefits to be paid to workers who contract diseases or suffer injury in the course of their employment. The High Court analysed one such provision in the case of a senior NHS doctor whose health collapsed after he was bitten by
