News & Updates

Employment Law August E-briefing

 

In this edition of our monthly employment law e-briefing we cover:

  

  • Disability & Race Discrimination
  • Childcare vouchers
  • Unfair Dismissal
  • National Minimum Wage

  


Disability Discrimination:

Take care of carers

UK Discrimination laws are based on a European Directive which states that discrimination should be prohibited if it is ‘on the grounds of disability'.  There has been confusion as to how to interpret these words.  Until a recent judgement by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) it was unclear whether disability discrimination could be claimed by an able bodied person through association with a disabled person, e.g. their carer.

 

Coleman -v- Attridge Law & another

This case concerned a secretary whose son was disabled. Ms Coleman was the primary carer of her son aged 4. She claimed direct discrimination and harassment by her former employers on the grounds of her son's disability.

 

The ECJ held that the Equal Treatment Framework is to be interpreted as protecting those who suffer discrimination as a result of their association with a disabled person, the individual does not require to be disabled.

 

The ECJ's landmark ruling will have a significant impact on employers throughout the UK.  Employers must look at whether they are doing enough to create a working environment which adequately caters for the needs of carers.

 

Not only does this have implications in relation to disability discrimination, there could also be implications for workers who are associated with people covered by other discrimination laws, such as race.

  

  

Job Adverts

The ECJ has ruled that job adverts which are discriminatory in nature or content amount to direct discrimination.  They can now be enforced by individual members of the public irrespective of whether they have been a victim of that discrimination.

 

A Belgian company stated in their advertisement that they did not employ immigrants as their clients did not like to deal with them. This was held to be direct discrimination on the grounds of race.  Employers should keep in mind discrimination laws from the recruitment stage and not just from the period of an individual's actual employment.

 


Employers Beware of Childcare Vouchers

For a long time childcare vouchers have been regarded as a ‘win-win' benefit, allowing employees to sacrifice a portion of their salary while employers can reap the tax efficient benefits of the vouchers too.  Following the legislative proposals put in place to improve maternity leave

(whereby women are soon to be paid throughout the whole of their 12 months maternity leave rather than just 9 months), this extension of maternity entitlements has implications for employers' childcare voucher schemes.

 

Employees who are expecting a child on or after 5 October 2008 will be entitled to the same terms during additional maternity leave which they are currently entitled to under ordinary maternity leave.  Therefore employers will have to continue providing childcare vouchers for the full 52 weeks.

 

Employers should not consider trying to find ways to avoid funding the childcare vouchers during maternity leave as many arrangements will be in contravention of discrimination laws and maternity rights.

  

 

Unfair Dismissal

In last month's e-briefing we reported on a tribunal case which had decided that an employer's delay in compliance with the statutory dismissal procedure would render a subsequent dismissal automatically unfair.  This was even though he had, eventually, completed the 3 step process. However, the Court of Appeal has now ruled that a dismissal will not be automatically unfair as long as the 3 step process is completed, even if a general requirement - e.g. no unreasonable delay - has not been complied with.

 

This decision should not be interpreted as meaning that employers don't have to deal with the dismissal procedure efficiently.  Whilst not automatically unfair, a delay in proceedings is likely nevertheless to be unfair procedurally.

 

 

Butchers prosecuted for failure to pay minimum wage

Sheffield Magistrates Court has directed a father and daughter to pay over £11,000 in compensation and costs to two former employees whom they failed to pay the minimum wage. It is the first time that an employer has faced criminal prosecution for deliberately not paying the minimum wage to its employees.

 

 

If you would like any further information on the issues raised in this briefing contact:

 

Karen Harvie:  kjh@tcyoung.co.uk

 

      

This e-briefing is intended as a guide and does not provide a comprehensive statement of the law.  Legal advice should be sought on individual circumstances.