Cancer is listed as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, providing sufferers from protection from discrimination. Employers must also make reasonable adjustments to a cancer sufferer’s job to remove any disadvantage they suffer as a result of their cancer. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now held that pre-cancerous lesions will also amount to a disability.
A woman who was paid 33 pence per hour as a domestic worker and was unaware of her right to the national minimum wage has been successful in her claim for constructive unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Ms Mruke was uneducated and illiterate. She was from Tanzania and spoke no English. Ms Mruke argued that her employer Ms Khan had breached her contract of employment by failing to pay her the national minimum wage.
Do you use fixed term contracts? If you do, you might think that as long as you comply with the regulations which protect fixed term workers all will be fine. That’s not always the case, as the NHS Trust in Surrey found out.
Are you ready for the new data protection regime? The Government has published research saying that fewer than 50% of businesses are aware of what they need to do to get ready for the new regime which comes into force on 25 May this year. The EU General Data Protection Regulation and the new Data Protection Act 2018 create a new set of data privacy rules which all businesses and employers must follow. Potential fines for a breach of the new rules are enormous and could in extreme cases amount to the higher of 4% of annual turnover or 20 million Euros.
Sometimes things don’t go well with an employee. They may not perform well, their behaviour may not be up to scratch or they may just not be a ‘fit’ for your business. If this happens, you may want to have a confidential discussion with the employee with a view to them leaving the business, without having to go through a formal performance management or disciplinary procedure. In exchange for them signing a settlement agreement waiving their rights to bring a claim against you, you may choose to offer them a sum of money.
Employees who are whistleblowers have protection from dismissal and detriment (being treated badly) because they blew that whistle on their employers. These so called ‘protected disclosures’ could be disclosures of information about a criminal offence, or breach of health and safety, or other legal obligations. An example of a detriment is refusing to promote someone because they blew the whistle on you.
For the first time in contested proceedings since the law came into force in 2011, a commercial organisation has been convicted of failing to prevent bribery under section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010.