Daniel Barnett’s regular news alert brought the case of Aberdeen City Council v McNeill to my attention. It provides a useful reminder about who must be in breach of the contract of employment before an employee can pursue a claim for constructive dismissal.
The facts were these:
Mr McNeill was a long standing employee of the Council. He became embroiled in disciplinary proceedings when his line manager was suspended pending investigation of alleged misconduct of a financial nature. The Claimant believed he had heard his line manager and a female employee, on two occasions, engaging in sexual activity together. It appears he was rather indiscreet in keeping this information to himself and was himself suspended for breaching confidentiality, as well as making defamatory remarks about a female colleague. That same female colleague alleged harassment, sexual harassment and bullying against Mr McNeill.
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Constructive Dismissal: Good news for Employers?
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Yesterday Ian Barratt of Mind Strengths Ltd published his “Seven Top Stress Management Tips for Employees”. Today I am publishing my “top tips” for employers hoping to avoid claims for stress at work from being commenced against them.
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Seven Ways for Employers to Avoid Stress at Work Claims
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Age Discrimination, Bullying & Harassment, Contracts of Employment, Equality, Personal Injury, Race Discrimination, Religion and Belief Discrimination, constructive dismissal, disability discrimination, stress at work
ACAS, bullying, constructive dismissal, discrimination, harassment, how do I cope with stress, HSA, HSE, Ian Barratt, Management Standards, MHSW, Mind Strengths, Personal Injury, Protection from Harassment Act 1997, stress at work, stress+management, TUC, victimisation
As promised last Monday, I am delighted today to welcome my first guest blogger, Ian Barratt (pictured, right) of Mind Strengths Ltd, to present his Seven Top Stress Management Tips on this third Monday of January, the allegedly most miserable day of the year. Ian is a qualified stress management consultant speaker and author. His book “The Phoenix Strategy”, co-authored with Amanda Robinson was published last October. Mind Strengths Ltd is a consultancy company offering workplace strress management , wellbeing and support services. Tomorrow I will look at how employers can minimise the risk of being sued for stress at work by employees.
Age Discrimination, Bullying & Harassment, Contracts of Employment, Equality, Personal Injury, Race Discrimination, Religion and Belief Discrimination, constructive dismissal, stress at work, unfair dismissal
constructive dismissal, discrimination, employees, how do I cope with stress, Ian Barratt, Mind Strengths, Miserable Monday, occupational illness, Personal Injury, Protection from Harassment Act 1997, stress at work, stress+management
I said 'TUPE, not toupee'
This can be a real headache for employers where they have “inherited” employees following a transfer of an undertaking under the TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. It is quite well known that if TUPE applies to a transfer then if the Transferor (let’s call it NewCo for ease if not originality) dismisses an employee from the transferee (OldCo) for a reason connected with the transfer, the dismissal will be automatically unfair, unless NewCo can show that an “economic, technical or organisational” reason applied entailing changes in the workforce. TUPE has the effect of transferring all employment contracts and rights from OldCo to NewCo.
Or, to be more precise, and rather less brutal, when did your employment terminate? In technical employment law parlance, what is the “Effective Date of Termination (EDT)”? This is a crucially important date in cases where employer-employee have fallen out because it is from the EDT that time limits for issuing proceedings at an Employment Tribunal (ET) are calculated.
An employee usually has three months in which to issue his/her proceedings – e.g. for unfair dismissal or for discrimination claims. Problems can arise when the papers commencing the claim (called the ET1) are lodged close to the three (calendar) month less one day limit. The ET is very strict about accepting claims outside the three month limit and will only do so if it was not “reasonably practical” for the proceedings to have been lodged within that time.
Kevin Keegan has won his case for constructive dismissal against former employers Newcastle United, being awarded £2mn by the Premier League’s Manager’s Arbitration Tribunal. He left the club in September 2008 after falling out with them over the purchase of a player Ignacio Gonzalez (who?) against his wishes.
Employers have to repay sick pay
Some good news for employees came out last week with the decision by the European Court of Justice in Pereda v Madrid Movilidad SA that says if an employee is sick whilst on holiday, they can retake the holiday later on or carry the days lost over to the next year.
Not surprisingly employers’ representatives are unhappy about it as it places additional burdens on them. It also increases the risk of unscrupulous employees taking advantage. No guidance is offered by the ECJ on how this could be policed. Employers can only insist on a sick note from GPs after seven days absence.
This post isn’t about Freddie Flintoff bowling 5-92 to defeat the Aussies at Lords (a very constructive dismissal in my view) but, sadly, is about some recent cases on the law relating to constructive dismissal. The recent case of Bournemouth University Higher Education Corporation v Buckland [2009] EAT whilst not being as newsworthy as this week’s actions at Lords is, nevertheless, important stuff on the difficult topic of constructive dismissal. In my experience few topics cause as much confusion or are as overused as constructive dismissal. Every second client thinks they have or are about to suffer it.
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Constructive Dismissal – recent developments
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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.
I posted on this subject a while ago and it has received such a lot of visits I thought I better give my public more of what they want. It also gives me an opportunity to provide an update on the poll I set up below on this issue. At the moment 57% of respondents would elect a pay cut and 31% would take redundancy. The remaining 11% didn’t know. Whether those results will change after this post wil be interesting to see.
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