In this latest edition of our ‘Need To Know’ employment and HR newsletter, we look at the blurred lines between necessary recruitment practices and unpaid labour, the fairness of dismissing an employee for refusing to attend work on health and safety grounds, the unprecedented annual high of menopause-related discrimination and how the much-anticipated Professional Qualifications Act 2022 has received the Royal Assent.
We also have included our usual HR Bullets – which cover other significant employment law updates from the past month.
- The Long Hello: The Legal Issues of Extended Interviews and Working Trials
- Health and safety dismissals: Lessons from the pandemic
- Menopause and the workplace: Employment Tribunal sees record number of menopause related claims in 2021
- Professional Qualifications Act 2022 receives Royal Assent
HR Bullets
Knightley v Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Trust
The Employment Appeals Tribunal (“EAT”) held that if an employer dismisses a disabled employee but fails to make a reasonable adjustment during that process, that does not necessarily render the dismissal unfair. The disabled Claimant had been dismissed following a capability procedure; the employer denied the claimant an extension of time to appeal against dismissal. The tribunal held that this constituted a failure to make a reasonable adjustment, however, the dismissal was held to be fair overall.
Lutz v Ryanair DAC and another
The ET decided that a pilot contracted through MCG and providing services to Ryanair was an agency worker of MCG, and not a self-employed contractor. In deciding that Mr Lutz was an agency worker, the tribunal found that he had a contract to supply his services personally (on a temporary basis) and not though the service company; Mr Lutz was therefore an agency worker of MCG.
Baker and others v Post Office Ltd and Others
The ET found that a group of postmasters were not workers as defined in regulation 2(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998. The Tribunal concluded, in line with previous authority, that all 10 of the Test Claimant Postmasters were not “workers” as they had no duty of personal service under their contracts.