Equality, diversity and human rights

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: £7,000 for Polish worker criticised by colleague for speaking her native language

  This Polish claimant was awarded £7,000 after being criticised by a colleague for speaking her native language in the workplace, in a good example of the language issues that can arise in a multinational workplace.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: refusal to allocate parking space was a failure to make reasonable adjustments

  The EAT has held that an employer's failure to allocate a parking space to a disabled employee amounted to a failure to make a reasonable adjustment.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination against job applicant not appointed to role of pizza chef

  This case serves as a reminder of the importance of having a recruitment policy and procedure in place that is not discriminatory and properly implemented and followed and of recording each stage of the recruitment process.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  James Buckle, Gerri Hurst, Joelle Parkinson, Chris McAvoy and Helen Samuel are associate solicitors at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: failure to record recruitment process leads to tribunal drawing adverse inferences

  It is perfectly possible for there to be very little direct evidence of discrimination in a recruitment process, but for an employee to win a tribunal claim because the employer's failure to keep a clear record leads to inconsistencies in its defence, as this disability discrimination case shows.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Race discrimination: carefully recorded recruitment process helps employer to defend tribunal claim

  Employers that operate a transparent and carefully recorded recruitment process have little to fear if they find themselves in an employment tribunal, as this race discrimination case shows.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Duty to make reasonable adjustments does not apply to associative disability discrimination, confirms EAT

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that employers do not have a duty to make reasonable adjustments where an individual, typically a carer, has an association with a disabled person.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: Court of Appeal confirms correct comparison exercise

  The Court of Appeal has confirmed that age-related differences between the claimant and his or her comparator should not be taken into account when deciding whether or not the claimant suffered less favourable treatment because of his or her age.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Reduction in working hours can be reasonable adjustment for disabled workers

  In Ring v Dansk Almennyttigt Boligselskab; HK Danmark, acting on behalf of Werge v Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, acting on behalf of Pro Display A/S [2013] IRLR 571 ECJ, the ECJ defined "disability", and held that reducing a disabled person's working hours may be a reasonable adjustment to enable him or her to continue working.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  HIV/AIDS: Greek employer breached human rights of worker dismissed after testing HIV positive

  The European Court of Human Rights has held that a Greek employer breached the human rights of an HIV-positive employee who was dismissed as a result of pressure from colleagues.