Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Date:

  15 April 1997

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Comparing proportionate impact of "requirement or condition"

  An industrial tribunal was entitled to conclude that the proportion of female train operators who could comply with a new roster (95.2%) was "considerably smaller" than the proportion of male train operators who could do so (100%), holds the EAT in London Underground Ltd v Edwards (No.2).

• Date:

  15 April 1997

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: £21,000 award for injury to feelings upheld

  In HM Prison Service and others v Johnson, the EAT upholds an award of £21,000 for injury to feelings made by an industrial tribunal to a black prison officer who was subjected to a prolonged campaign of racial harassment and discrimination.

• Date:

  15 February 1997

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: Extension of employers' liability for harassment

  In Jones v Tower Boot Co Ltd, the Court of Appeal holds that the words "in the course of employment" in the Race Relations Act should be interpreted in the sense in which they are employed in everyday speech, and not restrictively by reference to the principles laid down by case law for establishing an employer's liability for the torts committed by an employee during the course of his or her employment.

• Date:

  31 December 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Bamber v Fuji International Finance Plc

  In Bamber v Fuji International Finance Plc [1996] ET/28081/94, an employment tribunal found that Miss Bamber had been sexually discriminated against in relation to promotion. The award of compensation included £20,000 aggravated damages.

• Date:

  15 November 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: Employer liable for third-party harassment

  In Burton and Rhule v De Vere Hotels, the EAT holds that an employer "subjected" its employees to unlawful race discrimination when it allowed a speaker and guests at its hotel to abuse and harass them racially, in circumstances in which it had sufficient control over the discriminatory event so as to have been able to prevent or reduce the extent of it by applying good employment practice.

• Date:

  1 November 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Direct liability for harassment

  In Burton v De Vere Hotels (18 September 1996), the EAT rules that an employer subjects an employee to the detriment of racial harassment if it causes or permits the racial harassment to occur in circumstances in which it can control whether it happens or not.

• Date:

  15 September 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: Immediate successor can be comparator

  In Diocese of Hallam Trustee v Connaughton, the EAT holds that an industrial tribunal had jurisdiction to hear a woman's complaint that she was being paid less than she would have been paid if she were a man doing equal work for the same employer.

• Date:

  1 September 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Conventional appearance rule not discriminatory

  In Smith v Safeway plc (16 February 1996) EOR69A, the Court of Appeal holds that an appearance code which applies a standard of what is conventional applies an even-handed approach between men and women, and not one which is sex discriminatory.

• Date:

  15 July 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: Comparators in cross-establishment claims

  In British Coal Corporation v Smith and others, the House of Lords holds that a woman claiming equal pay for equal work with men employed by the same employer at different establishments must show that those men, and employees in the same category as them at her own establishment, were or would be employed on broadly similar terms and conditions.

• Date:

  1 July 1996

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Men's hair-length restriction not discriminatory

  In Smith v Safeway plc, the Court of Appeal holds that an industrial tribunal was entitled to decide that an employer's appearance code which required male employees' hair not to be below collar-length was not discriminatory.