Employment law stories in the news – 04.09.2017 to 10.09.2017

In the latest of our series of posts on employment law stories in the news, we take a look at ten employment-related stories that have made headlines between 4 September 2017 and 10 September 2017

  1. Sacked Cardiff surgeon Peter O’Keefe ‘now an Uber driver’ – A heart surgeon from Cardiff who was dismissed for bullying colleagues is now working as an Uber driver. Peter O’Keefe, 52, was suspended on full pay from Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales in 2012 and was later sacked in 2015 (BBC)
  2. Government tight-lipped on tribunal repayments – The government is unable to announce details of when and how it will reimburse claimants who had to pay unlawful employment tribunal fees, more than one month after the Supreme Court ruled against the fees (The Law Society Gazette)
  3. Retail workers comparable to distribution centre workers for equal pay claim – The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has ruled that individuals working in Asda’s retail stores can compare themselves with distribution centre workers in claims for equal pay (Lexology)
  4. Cream skimmed off Dairy Crest milkmen’s pensions – Thousands of former Dairy Crest milk deliverers will have to make do with smaller pension increases. They are among 15,000 members of the company’s pension scheme, who have been sent letters giving details of the cuts (BBC)
  5. Sports Direct pays out £43m bonus among 2,000 staff – Sports Direct has handed £43m in share bonuses to a group of nearly 2,000 permanent staff who took part in an incentive scheme launched in 2011 (The Guardian)
  6. Harriet Harman: Give MPs six months’ paid maternity leave – Members of Parliament should be given six months’ maternity leave, during which a colleague can cast votes on their behalf, Harriet Harman has said. The former Labour deputy leader, who has had three children while an MP, said a “proper system of baby leave” in Parliament was “long overdue” (BBC)
  7. President of the Employment Tribunals announces increase in the Vento Bands – Following a recent consultation, the President of the Employment Tribunals has announced a rise in the compensation that employees can recover for ‘injury to feelings’, in the event that they suffer from discrimination in the workplace (Lexology)
  8. Third of council equal pay claims still not settled – Councils across Scotland have still to settle more than a third of all equal pay claims 13 years after the deadline for new rules was set, a spending watchdog has found (BBC)
  9. Manufacturer sentenced after worker injured – A supplier to the aerospace trade from Durham has been fined when an employee suffered serious leg injuries (HSE)
  10. Ex-KWM staff set for payout as group accepts ‘maximum recoverable’ settlement over layoffs – Former King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) staff have accepted a financial settlement offered by the firm’s administrators over the way their redundancies were handled when the firm’s European arm collapsed in January (Legal Week)