Employment law stories in the news – 25.01.2016 to 31.01.2016

redmans-blog-newsIn the latest of our series of posts on employment law stories in the news, we take a look at ten employment law stories that have made the news between 25 January 2016 and 31 January 2016

  1. Women should hold quarter of top jobs at major businesses, says CBI head – More needs to be done to propel women into the top jobs in Britain’s biggest businesses, to boost economic growth, according to the head of the CBI – who wants all major companies to ensure that a quarter of all senior roles are held by women (The Guardian)
  2. Black workers ‘face widening pay gap the more qualifications they earn’ – The pay gap faced by black workers widens the more qualifications they obtain, according to research revealing the challenges faced by ethnic minority Britons pursuing professional careers (The Independent)
  3. Construction workers denied access to auto-enrolment pensions – An explosion in the number of construction workers moved into “umbrella” companies to avoid them appearing as full-time employees is undermining auto enrolment pensions, say unions (The Guardian)
  4. Labour accuse Greens of ‘playing politics’ over Mayor Joe’s £89k legal bill – A Green party call for a review into why Liverpool council paid Mayor Joe Anderson’s £89,000 employment tribunal legal fees ha​s been refused. Opposition party leader Tom Crone said there was a “mismatch” in information about why the council paid the legal bill for the tribunal – and tried to force an investigation by the local authority (The Liverpool Echo)
  5. Runcorn firm sentenced after HGV crushes worker to death – A Runcorn haulage firm has been ordered to pay £90,000 in fines and costs after an employee was crushed to death by a runaway lorry. Tony Schulze had been trying to connect a cab to a lorry trailer when the incident happened at Freight First Ltd’s premises on the Astmoor Industrial Estate on Goddard Road on 22 January 2011 (HSE)
  6. Dundee postie waiting on hefty payout after winning case against sacking – Royal Mail are facing a hefty payout to a postie unfairly sacked over a missing bag of mail – because it might not have been him that lost it. Stewart Walker was fired last year by bosses in Dundee after a bag of letters fell out of the back of a van in the Broughty Ferry area of the city (The Courier)
  7. More than half of BBC staff do not think bullying cases will be tackled fairly – More than half of BBC staff do not believe that cases of bullying or harassment would be tackled fairly by the corporation’s management. Just 47% of employees who responded to the BBC’s annual staff survey said that if they experienced or saw bullying or harassment that they would be confident that taking action would result in a “fair outcome” (The Guardian)
  8. High Court: criminal record checks are “arbitrary” and unlawful – The High Court has declared that the Government’s criminal record disclosure scheme is incompatible with the Human Rights Act. Ruling on a case last week, judges called the scheme used in England and Wales, which forces individuals to divulge their criminal record when applying for certain jobs, “arbitrary” and unlawful (Personnel Today)
  9. Hollow victory for former RBS trader after judge ruled sacked senior employee should receive no compensation despite winning part of his claim for unfair dismissal – A victory of sorts was claimed by the RBS Group after a judge ruled that a sacked senior employee should receive no financial compensation despite winning part of his unfair dismissal claim against the Edinburgh-based bank (The National)
  10. Ex-TSB manager wins payout for wrongful dismissal – A bank manager who was accused of being rude and threatening towards customers as she struggled to meet targets has been awarded £7,500 for wrongful dismissal. Lynne Adams, a former senior personal banking manager with the TSB, struggled to cope after bosses scrapped Payment Protection Insurance sales – a product she excelled at selling (Herald Scotland)