Employment law stories in the news – 02.03.2015 to 08.03.2015

In the latest of our series of posts on employment law stories in the news, we take a look at ten employment law stories that made headlines between 2 March 2015 and 8 March 2015

  1. Dow Jones worker ‘made to dress as Santa’ wins unfair dismissal case – A middle-aged accountant who said he was forced to dress up as Father Christmas and branded an “old buffer” has won his claim for unfair dismissal (BBC)
  2. Banker Karl Pestell lost job ‘after raising risk concern’ – A banker who claims he lost his job after raising concerns about his employer has lost a preliminary hearing at an employment tribunal in London. Karl Pestell, 48, says he was made redundant last month by the Japanese bank Nomura after telling his managers that financial risks were not being properly assessed (BBC)
  3. Lawyers launch tribunal claim for redundant City Link staff – Lawyers acting on behalf of more than 200 former staff of the collapsed parcel carrier City Link have announced that they are taking their compensation case to an Employment Tribunal (Post and Parcel)
  4. Former Morrisons treasurer jailed for insider trading – A former senior executive at Wm Morrison has been jailed for 12 months for insider trading. Paul Coyle pleaded guilty to two counts of insider dealing at Leeds Crown Court after buying shares in Ocado before a lucrative £216m tie-up with Morrisons was announced in 2013 (The Telegraph)
  5. £1m spent by Hertfordshire County Council on ‘golden goodbyes’ to staff, figures reveal – ‘Golden goodbyes’ totalling nearly £1million were paid to leaving employees by Herts County Council. The authority defended the payments and refused to reveal further details on the cash handouts, such as what they were paid for or who they were handed to (The WH Times)
  6. New mothers in City should expect to earn less than men, Nigel Farage suggests -New mothers returning to work after having children should expect to be paid less than men in some professions because it is a “fact of life”, Nigel Farage has said.The Ukip leader said during an appearance on Loose Women that mothers in some City jobs will come back to work and “find themselves behind the rest of the pack”, a problem which is “difficult to change” (The Telegraph)
  7. Senior NHS officials sacked following investigation into off-payroll earnings – Two Government departments have been fined and 100 NHS bosses and civil servants have been fired after the Treasury discovered that staff were being paid “off the books” through companies.
    Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, fined the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health a total of £1.5million after it emerged that they were not doing enough to stop staff being paid through companies and potentially reducing their tax bills (The Telegraph)
  8. Prison bosses feared chaplain could die from blood loss if he was attacked by inmates – A prison chaplain was sacked as his bosses feared a bloodbath if he was attacked by inmates as he was on a blood-thinning drug following a heart attack. Rev Matthew Reed, a former chaplain at HMP Edinburgh, was placed on the medication after the heart attack in 2012 and prison bosses decided he could not return to work due to the health risks if he was assaulted (Herald Scotland)
  9. Tayside road workers win unfair dismissal case against BEAR Scotland – BEAR Scotland has been ordered to pay £25,000 to employees it monitored through covert surveillance. It used the footage to sack two Tayside road workers for gross misconduct after alleging they were guilty of poor timekeeping and falsifying records (The Courier)
  10. Hertfordshire firm and director fined after excavation collapse – The director of a building firm was partially buried when the high sides of an excavation he was working on collapsed on him, a court has heard (HSE)