Equality, diversity and human rights
An employment tribunal has held that an employer committed direct sex discrimination when it rejected a female chef's request to do paid extra work at a private event organised by the head of sales, who said that it was an all-male event and that a male chef would be preferable.
An employment tribunal has held that an estate agent administrator who resigned after she was told that she would be "better suited to a traditional estate agency" was subjected to age discrimination.
In Peninsula Business Service Ltd v Baker [2017] IRLR 394 EAT, the EAT held that, for a claim of harassment to succeed in a case involving the protected characteristic of disability, it is not enough for the alleged harassment to be "related to" disability in a general sense. The claimant must actually have a disability to bring the claim.
In Achbita and another v G4S Secure Solutions [2017] IRLR 466 ECJ, the ECJ held that an employer's rule prohibiting employees from wearing any visible signs of belief, including the hijab, did not amount to direct discrimination.
In Bougnaoui and another v Micropole SA [2017] IRLR 447 ECJ, the ECJ held that an employer in France could not use the reluctance of a customer to deal with any worker wearing an Islamic headscarf to defend the dismissal of a Muslim worker because she wore the hijab.
In this Romanian case, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has held that monitoring the employee's private use of a business messaging account amounted to a breach of his right to private life and correspondence under art.8.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that there was no religious discrimination when a Christian prison employee faced disciplinary action for quoting a passage from the bible and "speaking about homosexuality as a sin" during a chapel service.
The Court of Appeal has held that the legislative provision that excludes park police constables from enjoying collective consultation rights is in breach of their, and their union's, art.11 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal's decision and held that civil partners and same-sex spouses are entitled to pension benefits accrued before the introduction of civil partnerships on 5 December 2005.
The employment tribunal held that the dismissal of a disabled employee on a final written attendance warning following an absence unrelated to her disabilities constituted discrimination arising from disability.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to equality, diversity and human rights.