Riam Dean’s case against the American clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch caught my eye this week. Last summer she had a holiday job working as a shop assistant at the Savile Row branch of A&F. She alleges she was told to leave the shopfloor and work in the stockroom, for not complying with the company’s strict “look” policy. Her crime? She was wearing a white cardigan. Apparently (and this was all news to me) A&F have a very strict policy on the appearance of their staff which doesn’t include white cardigans it would seem. This however, wasn’t a claim under the Employment Equality (Prevention of Discrimination to Cardigan Wearers) Regulations, which have yet to be promulgated. It was instead a claim under the Disability Discrimination Act because Riam wore the cardigan to disguise her prosthetic lower left arm. She was self-conscious about the join between her arm and the prosthetic at the elbow. She says she had previously been given special permission to wear the cardigan. The case is ongoing at the moment, the ET hasn’t decided whether to accept her allegations or not and it will be interesting to see the result. However, if her allegations are upheld it will be a shameful episode for A&F.
Monthly Archives: June 2009
BA is in the news again …
BA has been in the news … again and, as usual, for all the wrong reasons. The company formerly claiming to be the world’s favourite airline has now asked 40,000 of its staff to not just take a pay cut but to work for nothing for a month to ensure the company’s survival. Now there’s an enticing offer … not.
Will Court decision lead to an increase in dismissals?
The House of Lords (HL) has finally handed down judgment in the case of Stringer v HMRC. To say this decision has been keenly anticipated is an understatement. I posted on it a little while ago.
Alex says it best …
Following on from my recent post about the usefulness of Twitter, today’s cartoon by Alex in The Daily Telegraph provides his usual incision and wit into the subject of whether Twitter is any use at all. I’m converted to it, albeit I don’t find nearly enough time to “tweet”.
The recent poll I ran on this subject has given a resounding answer; most of you think Twitter is a waste of time.
Should Tube Workers be allowed to strike?
This is a thought that has been exercising me (and some of my colleagues) today. In comparison to some of my commuting co-workers (particularly those training in to Waterloo) I had a fairly smooth journey in; not that I want to seem smug about it you understand. It took Nicola, our trainee solicitor, two hours to get from Waterloo into the City. She wasn’t alone with nightmare tales to tell. Reading over someone’s shoulder at the station I saw that the London Lite newspaper has also been questioning it given the travel chaos the RMT has foisted on us today. On their letters page they published a selection of readers’ comments which were 4 – 3 against the RMT. The general consensus around my office was that tube workers shouldn’t be allowed to strike, given the amount of chaos and severe disruption it causes. Is it just me or do the RMT always seem to call a strike when there is a major sporting event on (the Lions tour to South Africa and the ICC Twenty20 World Cup spring to mind and the Ashes Test series starts next month – are there any strikes planned for then?). At least the weather isn’t that brilliant for them this week.
Rolls Royce v Unite: an update
On the 28th November last year I posted on the above case, which was heard in the High Court, on the redundancy criteria used by Rolls Royce when selecting candidates for redundancy. Please see that post for more details of the criteria used. The interesting point about this particular case is that it looked at the interplay between redundancy selection criteria and the Age Discrimination legislation. Rolls Royce were seeking a declaration from the Court that their redundancy criteria, which added one point per year of service to individual employees’ scores (in addition to the scores they received for various other criteria) WAS in breach of the Age Discrimination regulations. This is because employees with longer service would get more points and was thus indirectly discriminatory towards younger employees.
Race Discrimination and Redundancy
Two recent cases before the Suffolk ET highlighted the risks that employer face when making redundancies. In this particular matter, Obikwu v British Refugee Council and Ukwaja v British Refugee Council (BRC), two (black) immigration workers were selected for redundancy by their employer, the BRC. The ET found in favour of both workers in April 2008, but it was only in the last few days that Mr Obikwu’s remedies hearing took place which settled the level of compensation to be paid to him. Ms Ukwaja’s case was determined last January.
“Tesco Law” – not the threat that solicitors fear?
The headline on this week’s Law Society Gazette, the house magazine for solicitors, is “Consumers sceptical about “Tesco law” (1). Poll research carried out by ComRes, a polling company, on behalf of the Solicitors Regulation Authority apparently reveals that 69% of its respondents have reservations about the quality of legal services that would be provided by banks and supermarkets once the legal market is deregulated, the so-called “Tesco law” scenario which has brought many high-street firms of solicitors out in a cold sweat. Many lawyers see it as being the beginning of the end for high street firms that rely on domestic conveyancing to earn their crust as they would simply not be able to compete on price with a large scale operation that could “sausage process” huge volumes of transactions. I haven’t seen the full report and if anyone knows the link to it please pass it on.