A civilian police worker unsuccessfully claimed unfair dismissal and disability discrimination after she lost her job for a dangerous driving conviction. This is an example of an employer legitimately dismissing a worker who has been convicted of a criminal offence outside work.
In this well-publicised case, the employer was in the unenviable position of having to decide whether or not an employee who had been charged with, but not yet tried for, murder should be dismissed.
An unfortunate situation arose for this small employer when a recruitment consultant was made redundant after she had informed it, just two weeks into her new job, that she was pregnant. She claimed sex discrimination and unfair dismissal after seeing an advert shortly after her redundancy stating that the company was seeking recruitment consultants.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that, where an employer offers an incentive to employees to secure agreement to variation of their contracts, it is reasonable not to offer that benefit as part of an offer of re-engagement following dismissals for failure to agree.
The employer in this case wanted to make a blanket variation to its workforce's contractual notice periods. However, the employer got itself into the difficult position of varying the claimant's notice period, while the rest of the workforce refused the change.
In this case, the industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland described a small employer's decision to dismiss a young worker to avoid having to increase her pay from £4.00 to the national minimum wage rate of £4.92, when she reached the age of 18, as "callous".
The European Court of Justice has held that a rule in a collective agreement applicable to the crew of the German airline Deutsche Lufthansa prohibiting pilots from flying after the age of 60 is discriminatory on the ground of age.
In this decision, the employment tribunal was critical of a local authority that failed to keep an employee at risk of redundancy in employment for six more months during a transitional period. The decision had been taken to avoid a pension payout and constituted direct age discrimination and unfair dismissal.