Employment law stories in the news – 08.02.2015 to 14.02.2015

redmans-blog-newsIn the latest of our series of posts on employment law cases in the news, we examine ten employment law-related stories that made headlines between 8 February and 14 February 2016

  1. HSE to prosecute film company after Star Wars incident – The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has today informed Foodles Production (UK) Ltd that it will be prosecuted over an incident in which actor Harrison Ford was seriously injured during the filming of “Star Wars: The Forces Awakens” (HSE)
  2. Firms forced to reveal gender pay gap – Companies that fail to address pay differences between male and female employees will be highlighted in new league tables under plans announced on Friday. Those with more than 250 employees will be forced to reveal their pay gap (BBC)
  3. Female British Airways cabin crew win the right to wear trousers – An argument over who wears the trousers at British Airways has been won by the workers, after the airline agreed to allow all cabin crew, male and female, to keep their legs covered (The Guardian)
  4. Restaurant company director given 7-year ban for employing illegal workers – Guat Gor Goh, the director of a Newcastle restaurant company, has been disqualified from acting as a director for 7 years by Newcastle County Court on 22 December, for allowing the company to employ illegal workers (Gov.UK)
  5. Fuel giant sentenced over offshore platform gas releases – One of the world’s largest oil and gas exploration and production companies has been fined after gas leaks on a gas platform off the Lincolnshire coast put workers’ lives in danger (HSE)
  6. Lawyers: Tribunal service could be inundated under new devolved powers – Lawyers are at odds over the devolution of employment tribunals, with some claiming the changes could leave the Scottish system inundated with cases from the rest of the UK (Herald Scotland)
  7. Dyslexic employee wins discrimination case against Starbucks – Starbucks has lost a disability discrimination case after it wrongly accused a dyslexic employee of falsifying documents when she had simply misread numbers she was responsible for recording (The Guardian)
  8. Lawyer dropped Sussex MP Huw Merriman tribunal case over six-figure legal bill fears – A high-flying City lawyer dropped an employment tribunal case against Sussex Tory MP Huw Merriman because she faced a six-figure legal bill, she claimed last night. Patronia Campbell, 49, had alleged she suffered 30 months of harassment at Lehman Brothers International – where Mr Merriman worked before being elected last year to the Bexhill and Battle seat – after a drunken one-night-stand with him (The Courier)
  9. Married NHS HR executive, 50, who was branded a whore then sacked by her boss when she turned down his advances is awarded £832,000 compensation – A married HR chief branded a ‘whore’ and then sacked after she spurned the sexual advances of her NHS boss has today been awarded close to £1million in compensation. Helen Marks lost her job as human resources director at the Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust after fending off the unwanted attentions of its chairman Alan Baines (The Daily Mail)
  10. Trade union bill could escalate disputes, warns employment law expert – The government’s proposed trade union laws could escalate disputes and result in employees using more extreme tactics, according to a QC who was asked by ministers to review industrial legislation (The Guardian)