HR Articles

The recent case of Royal Surrey County NHS Foundation Trust v Drzymala serves as a reminder to employers that the non-renewal of a fixed term contract will be a dismissal and that the usual principals governing unfair dismissals will apply.

In the case of Malik v Cenkos Securities Plc, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) found that for there to be a causal link between a protected disclosure and detrimental treatment, the individual accused of the detrimental treatment must be personally motivated by the disclosure.

A few weeks ago we wrote about how the Home Office’s Restricted CoS limit was reached in December and many employers saw their applications refused.

The last 12 months have seen a monumental cultural change, particularly for women. With the #MeToo movement, people are able to call out sexual abuse and harassment in ways that wouldn’t previously have been possible.

As we predicted, the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) has rejected an application by a trade union for statutory recognition to negotiate directly with the University of London on behalf of a group of workers who work at the university but who are employed by Cordant Security, a facilities management company.

In the recent case of Bamieh v EULEX Kosovo and ors, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) found that an employee could bring whistleblowing detriment claims against co-workers for events which allegedly took place whilst on secondment in Kosovo.

In Dhanda v TSB Bank Plc, the claimant had been dismissed for gross misconduct. She had been represented by her union throughout her disciplinary proceedings and claim. During the Employment Tribunal proceedings, her employer requested disclosure of all correspondence between her and the union so that it could see if this contained relevant comments.

Covert surveillance at work was found to be in breach of the right to privacy and data protection law by the European Court of Human Rights(ECtHR) in Lopez Ribalda & Ors v Spain.

Under the Working Time Regulations a worker is entitled to a 20 minute rest break if they work over six hours.

Businesses with sponsor licences have a huge responsibility to ensure that the points based system is not abused. The role of the Authorising Officer is to effectively manage the licence and ensure the employer is not in breach of its sponsor duties.