Bringing or defending a claim for constructive unfair dismissal can be a tricky business at the best of times. Much of this difficulty for both an employee in claiming and an employer defending can be in diving what the substantive reasons are for the resignation in response to a purported fundamental breach of contract on the part of the employer.
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Monthly Archive November 2013
ECHR freedom of association violated by BNP councillor dismissal
Employers expect employees and clients from different racial backgrounds, sexual orientation and political beliefs and affiliations to work alongside one another in harmony. However where an employer dismisses an employee on the grounds that their views may amount to being a health and safety risk to their clientele, would that dismissal amount to being fair?
This was the issue looked at by the ECHR in the recent decision of Redfearn v United Kingdom the European Court of Human Rights.
Read MoreAmbiguous Resignations
Dealing with resignation by employees is a natural and unavoidable part of being an employer. Issues can however arise in respect of the form that such resignations can take, specifically the ambiguous language that some employees tend to use when quitting employment.
Read MoreContract? What Contract?!
Clarification or even admittance of an employer/employee relationship can sometimes be a rather contentious exercise where disputes arise as to the nature of a working arrangement.
Recently in the case of Troutbeck SA v White & Anor the Court of Appeal (“CA”) was required to look at a situation where an employer had little day-to-day control over its employee’s work. The CA was however able to find that such a lack of control was not a fatal obstacle to there being an employment relationship being in existence.
Read MoreZero Hour Uncertainty
In past issues we have considered the legal-commercial rationale for implementing ‘zero hours’ contracts for part or all of a workforce – those contracts where there is no obligation either for the employer to provide work, nor for the worker to accept the same.
A point not previously touched upon and recently brought to the fore via case law, is the concept of an employment relationship considered by the employer to be zero hours, although not expressly labelled as such and that over time ‘crystallises’ into something much more substantial in terms of the rights capable of being asserted by the worker.
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