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Collective employee relations

New and updated

  • Date:
    12 December 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Cooper and others v Isle of Wight College

    The High Court has held that an employer could deduct only 1/260th of salary from employees' pay in respect of a one-day strike, and not 1/228th, which discounted paid holiday.

  • Date:
    24 November 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Redundancy: Employers must consult over reasons for closure

    In UK Coal Mining Ltd v (1) National Union of Mineworkers (Northumberland Area) (2) The British Association of Colliery Management EAT/0397/06 & EAT/0141/07, the EAT held that the duty to consult about ways of "avoiding" redundancies inevitably involves consultation about the reasons behind the proposed dismissals and, contrary to previous authority, is not limited to consultation about how the redundancies are to be effected.

  • Date:
    17 October 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Félix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA

    In Félix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA Case C-411/05, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given its judgment that the Equal Treatment Directive (2000/78/EC) does not preclude a Spanish law permitting clauses in collective agreements that allow employees to be compulsorily retired when they reach a specified age.

  • Date:
    15 October 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Information and consultation: Penalty imposed for serious breach

    Where the Central Arbitration Committee has found an employer to be in breach of certain obligations under the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, the EAT may order the employer to pay a financial penalty to the secretary of state. In the first case to arise on this point, Amicus v MacMillan Publishers Ltd EAT/0185/07, the EAT ordered the employer to pay £55,000 in respect of a "very grave" breach.

  • Date:
    4 September 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Redundancy: Volunteers for redundancy did not resign but were dismissed

    In Optare Group Ltd v Transport and General Workers Union EAT/0143/07 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a tribunal was right to hold that voluntary redundancies counted towards the total number of proposed redundancy dismissals at an establishment, which in this case was sufficient to trigger the statutory collective consultation requirements.

  • Type:
    Employment law cases

    Case round-up

    Judith Harris, professional support lawyer at Addleshaw Goddard, outlines the latest legal rulings.

  • Date:
    30 May 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Human rights: Union did not act unlawfully in expelling BNP member

    In Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) v United Kingdom [2007] IRLR 361, a case of competing rights of association under art. 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, a trade union's right to expel a member of the BNP because his values conflicted fundamentally with its own outweighed the individual's right to membership of the union.

  • Date:
    17 April 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Protective awards: A protective award for failure to consult a recognised trade union does not extend to cover employees in respect of whom the trade union is not recognised

    In Transport & General Workers' Union v Brauer Coley Ltd (in administration) [2007] IRLR 207 EAT the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that where a trade union is successful in proceedings brought for failure to consult on collective redundancies, the protective award cannot be claimed by any employees in respect of whom the trade union was not recognised by the employer.

  • Date:
    20 March 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Bull and another v Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire and Rescue Authority; Lincolnshire County Council v Fire Brigades Union and others

    In Bull and another v Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire and Rescue Authority; Lincolnshire County Council v Fire Brigades Union and others [2007] All ER (D) 372 (Feb) CA, the Court of Appeal has held that it is not part of fire-fighters' normal contractual duties under a collective agreement to go to accidents and emergencies that would normally be dealt with by ambulance crews.

  • Date:
    2 February 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    TUPE case law update

    This article looks at some of the important judgments in the area of the transfer of undertakings over the past year.