Equality, diversity and human rights
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that an employer's compliance with the TUPE legislation to preserve existing contractual terms and conditions that results in a disparity in pay can amount to a genuine material factor that may provide a defence to an equal pay claim.
This unusual case concerned whether or not an employee's beliefs that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 were carried out by the US and UK Governments, and were part of a "gigantic" and "evil" conspiracy, are capable of being protected as "philosophical beliefs" under discrimination law.
The Court of Appeal has held that a gay employee, who had revealed his sexual orientation at his previous office, was not discriminated against at his new office when his manager mentioned his sexual orientation to, and in front of, colleagues.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employment tribunal had not considered properly the evidence as to whether or not a significant group of Sikhs were disadvantaged by a council's policy that all staff who used of the communal staff kitchen had to join the rota to clean the fridge.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employment tribunal was entitled to impose a wide range of recommendations on a school that it found had committed age discrimination, included requiring a review of many of its policies by an HR professional.
Claire Benson is managing associate and Helen Corbett, Sinead Jones, Helen Ward and Tori O'Neil are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
This case is an example of an employer that needed to deal with the extremely difficult issue of having a disciplinary matter pending against a member of staff on maternity leave.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that it was not a reasonable adjustment for the subjective redundancy selection criteria by which a disabled employee who was at risk of redundancy was judged to be removed from the process.
In this case, an Indian employee alleged that his employer had instructed him to adopt an anglicised alias at work.
In X v Mid Sussex Citizens’ Advice Bureau and others [2011] EWCA Civ 28 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a volunteer at a Citizens’ Advice Bureau was not an employee for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and could not therefore claim disability discrimination when she was asked to stop her voluntary work.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to equality, diversity and human rights.