Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Harassment complaint not taken seriously

  A female trainee whose complaint of threats of violence and harassment by a fellow male trainee was not properly investigated by the college principal was unlawfully discriminated against on grounds of sex, rules a Newcastle upon Tyne industrial tribunal (Chair: P G Rennie) in McGuiness v Finchale Training College.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Minorities 'inferior to whites'

  It is a foreseeable consequence of discriminatory treatment that an employee will become upset and demotivated, holds a Birmingham industrial tribunal (Chair: A J McCarry) in Bains v Amber Leisure Ltd, finding that the dismissal of an ethnic minority employee for redundancy was unlawful discrimination even though he had requested it.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Liability for racist abuse

  In Pereira v The Post Office, a Southampton industrial tribunal rules that the Post Office, which had properly followed "full procedures", was not liable for the racial abuse suffered by an employee from a fellow employee. However, in Cooley v BRS Ltd, a Reading industrial tribunal rules that BRS had failed to properly implement its harassment policy and was liable for the racial abuse of one employee by another.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  'Lad' wanted for heavy lifting job

  An employer who asked jobcentre staff to advertise a job as being one for a "lad" because it involved heavy lifting acted unlawfully, rules a Birmingham industrial tribunal (Chair: J G Haslam) in Equal Opportunities Commission v Grays Retailing Ltd.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  £2,000 award for injury to feelings approved

  In Automotive and Financial Group Ltd v Bark the EAT has held that a compensation award of £2,000 for injury to feelings to a trainee salesperson, who was dismissed after she was sexually harassed, fell within the bracket of permissible awards.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Administrative error justifies pay difference

  In Young v University of Edinburgh the EAT finds that an employer can establish a defence to an equal pay claim by showing that the difference in pay was genuinely due to an administrative error, which the employer could not rectify without creating further anomalies.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Comparator must be of opposite sex

  The principle of equal pay under Article 119 of the EC Treaty only applies where the comparator is in fact of the opposite sex, the EAT holds in Collins v Wilkin Chapman, overruling the decision of an industrial tribunal that a claim could be brought where the comparator is perceived to be of the opposite sex, but is the same sex biologically.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Claim for widower's pension blocked

  The exception to the temporal limitation in the Barber decision in respect of workers who have already brought legal proceedings "or made an equivalent claim" only applies where the claim had been made to an independent third party with power to make a determination, holds a Bristol industrial tribunal (Chair: C G Toomer) in Howard v Ministry of Defence.

• Date:

  1 March 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Overtime pay for part-timers

  In Stadt Lengerich v Helmig (15 December 1994) EOR60A, the European Court of Justice rules that there is no discrimination contrary to European Community law where a collective agreement provides that overtime supplements will be paid only when the normal working hours for full-time employees are exceeded.

• Date:

  1 February 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Equal pay: No discrimination against part-timers in overtime rules

  It is not contrary to EC equal pay law to restrict the payment of premium overtime rates only to employees who work more than the designated number of normal full-time hours, holds the European Court of Justice in Stadt Lengerich v Helmig and five joined cases.