Employment law cases in the news – 02.02.2015 to 08.02.2015

redmans-blog-newsIn the latest of our series of posts on employment law cases in the news, we take a look at ten employment law-related cases that have made headlines between 2 February and 8 February 2015.

  1. Ex-Pool star in job fight appeal – A former Blackpool FC star claims he was unfairly sacked after he ‘blew the whistle’ about teenagers taking drugs at the children’s home he worked at. Eamonn O’Keefe, 61, who scored 23 goals in 38 appearences for the Seasiders in the mid-1980s says 12-16-year-olds at Knowlton House in Congleton bought cannabis with pocket money awarded for doing jobs such as car washing (The Blackpool Gazette)
  2. Church leader and deacon husband in legal war which began with unholy row at wedding reception – A church pastor has emerged victorious from an unholy legal row with her deacon husband after their marriage made in heaven came to a bitter end. And, both sides agree, it began to unravel during the wedding reception (The Birmingham Mail)
  3. Female Catholic claimed bias … after female Catholic got job she wanted – An Invest NI manager who failed to get promoted has claimed that she was discriminated against because she was a woman and a Roman Catholic — despite the fact that the person who got the job was a female Catholic (News Letter)
  4. Prison worker claims she was passed up for training for a better position because she is black – A former manager at Lewes Prison has claimed she suffered racial and gender discrimination while working there. Marcia Thomas, from Ringmer, near Lewes, said she was passed up for training for a better position and placed on a redeployment list because she is a black woman (The Argus)
  5. Umpires ‘too slow’ for cricket at 65, says ECB – Cricket umpires should be forced to retire at the age of 65 because their reactions become too slow for the game, the sport’s governing body has stated. The man in charge of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s employment of match officials said it was right to dismiss two long-standing umpires, under a rule that stops them working beyond the male age of retirement (The Telegraph)
  6. Radio station boss ‘claimed women were best at home’, tribunal hears – A former radio station commercial director is taking the firm to an employment tribunal, claiming her boss wanted new recruits to be like her – “to be blonde, have big boobs and blue eyes” (The Yorkshire Post)
  7. Sports Direct faces multimillion-pound claim from zero-hours contract workers – Sports Direct is facing a claim for millions of pounds from nearly 300 workers excluded from the retailer’s generous bonus scheme because they were on zero-hours contracts. The employees were excluded from a bonus scheme that paid out about £160m worth of shares to 2,000 “permanent” workers in 2013 (The Guardian)
  8. Embassy work rules immunity ‘incompatible’ with EU rights – UK laws which let two embassies use diplomatic immunity to block employment rights cases breached European law, the Court of Appeal has ruled. In a case brought by former workers at the Sudanese and Libyan embassies, the court said denying access to employment laws breached workers’ human rights (BBC)
  9. Academic can pursue ‘weak’ case – An academic has been told by judges that she can continue a legal fight with Oxford University – even though her case appeared “weak”. Cecile Deer, who was a French lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford, originally brought a discrimination claim eight years ago. An employment tribunal ruled against her three years later (The Littlehampton Gazette)
  10. ‘Slave labour’ maids told their Saudi diplomat boss has immunity – Two domestic workers who say they were trafficked and then treated as slaves by a Saudi diplomat and his wife have been told he is protected from a compensation claim by diplomatic immunity (The Telegraph)