News

Overview The late May bank holiday will be moved to Thursday 2 June 2022 and an additional Jubilee bank holiday will be on Friday 3 June 2022. The DfE have laid regulations reducing the school year from 190 to 189 days for the academic year 2021-2022. Full time employees will simply receive an additional day … Read more

Summary The Court of Appeal has upheld an employment tribunal’s decision that a courier, who could release a delivery slot that he had agreed to undertake to another courier, via a smartphone app, worked under a contract for the personal performance of services, satisfying the definition of “worker” under section 230(3)(b) of the Employment Rights … Read more

In Gwynedd Council v Barratt and another [2021] EWCA Civ 1322, the Court of Appeal held that the lack of any appeal or review procedure does not of itself render a redundancy dismissal unfair. However, it is one of the factors to be considered when determining the overall fairness of the dismissal. The claimants were … Read more

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that Maya Forstater, who had her contract terminated because of tweets expressing her views on gender, was entitled to express those views as they constituted a philosophical belief under the Equality Act. Facts The Claimant holds gender-critical beliefs, which include the belief that sex is immutable and not to … Read more

Summary The Employment Rights Act 1996 (Protection from Detriment in Health and Safety Cases) (Amendment) Order 2021 (SI 2021/618) will come into force on 31 May 2021 and extends the protection against detriment relating to health and safety matters to workers. The existing protection only applied to employees. Detail Section 100 of the ERA 1996 … Read more

In a further case linked to Covid-19 an employment tribunal held that a solicitor had been unfairly dismissed for refusing to agree to changes to her employment contract allowing her employer to reduce her pay and hours to 80% or place her on furlough. Although there was a potentially fair reason for the dismissal, the … Read more

In order to succeed in a constructive dismissal case, (a form of unfair dismissal, where the employee resigns), an employee must prove:- The employer committed a fundamental breach of an express or implied term of the contract of employment. The employee resigned as a result of the breach. The employee did not delay too long … Read more

In the case of Smith v Pimlico Plumbers, the EAT has upheld an employment tribunal decision that a worker has no right to carry over payment for annual leave where the worker was previously permitted to take leave that was unpaid. Although an earlier case had established that a worker is entitled to carry over … Read more

Summary Under current employment law, there are three categories of individuals providing their services in the job market: Employee. Worker. Self-employed independent contractor. There are statutory definitions for the first two categories, although these are not comprehensive and the current position has been substantially defined through case law. An individual who is neither an employee … Read more