Employment law stories in the news – 21.07.2014 to 27.07.2014

MoJIn the latest of our series of posts on employment law stories in the news this week, we take a look at ten employment stories relating to employment law that have made the news between 21 July and 27 July 2014.

  1. Network Rail faces largest ever equal pay claim, backed by TSSA – More than 30 female managers at Network Rail have launched what could become a multi-million pound equal pay claim backed by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association union (TSSA). In its claim, the TSSA said that female managers are being paid between £3,000 and £4,000 a year less than male colleagues doing the same job (CIPD)
  2. David Elleray in fresh scandal as referee coach accuses FA panel led by former Premier League official of unfair dismissal – FA referee grandee David Elleray, fortunate to keep his football posts after making a ghastly racist comment to a fellow official, is now involved in another alleged discriminatory issue (The Daily Mail)
  3. Hospital worker to pay £150k damages to colleagues after ‘campaign of harassment’ – A disgruntled Harefield Hospital worker from Hayes who launched a vicious campaign of harassment and libel against former colleagues after losing his job has been ordered to pay them £150,000 High Court damages (Get West London)
  4. Teacher wins unfair dismissal claim against Belfast school – A teacher who was cleared of sexually assaulting a pupil but then sacked by his school has won a claim for unfair dismissal. The man had been accused of hugging a girl and making inappropriate comments at the Belfast school in 2011 (BBC)
  5. Gay engineers fear ‘coming out’ at work – Nearly half of gay and lesbian engineers hide their sexuality from work colleagues, according to new research (NCE)
  6. Sacked Baby P chief Sharon Shoesmith won payout of more than £600,000 – Haringey council has had to pay out more than £600,000 to its former children’s services boss Sharon Shoesmith in compensation for unfair dismissal, unpaid wages, and pension contributions, according to reports (The Guardian)
  7. Unison says council redundancy costs rise as more staff axed – Figures obtained by BBC Wales show that the amount councils are spending on redundancy payments has nearly doubled. More than £30m was spent by local authorities on redundancy packages in the last financial year – that’s compared to just over £17m in the previous year (BBC)
  8. Drink-drive doc awarded £70k for unfair dismissal – A doctor who was sacked after he was caught driving to work while nearly four times the legal limit is set to pocket more than £70,000 in compensation for unfair dismissal (The Edinburgh Evening News)
  9. Barrister’s avalanche of ‘vexatious’ race and sex claims sees him barred from ever taking legal action again – A barrister who failed in an unprecedented 30 “vexatious” employment tribunal claims over four years has been barred from ever bringing legal action again. John Iteshi, 40, qualified in 2007 but was unable to work as a barrister after failing to acquire a necessary training position known as a pupillage (The Evening Standard)
  10. UBS Wins Case Over Firing of Drug Analyst in Front-Running Probe – A London judge said UBS AG (UBSN) had the right to fire a senior analyst who discussed rumors about a Sanofi drug with a friend at a hedge fund who may have bet against the company before publishing a report causing its shares to drop (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)