Legal News – Business, Personal and Up to date Law Stories
If an employee cannot make it into work, they are expected to inform their employer or manager no later than an hour before they are due to start. Twenty-four hours notice is far preferable for most employers, but obviously not always possible. When informing their manager that they are ill, an employee should be prepared to explain the nature of their illness and give an estimation for the amount of time they will need to take off work. (more…)
Performance-related pay schemes can be complicated and, in some cases, an employer may make a mistake or fail to pay an employee their due bonuses or commission. In these situations, it is vital everybody involved keeps copies of all correspondence, work done and the agreements under contract.
All employees have the right to know how often and how much they will be paid. This includes being informed of the date or day of payment, the amount the payment will be and how the payment will be made – directly to the bank, by cheque or in cash, for example. All this must occur within the first two months of employment.
Should an employee fall pregnant, it is deemed unfair for that employee to be dismissed by her employer, even if she has not completed even a year’s continuous employment. Below are employees’ other maternity rights, some of which are not common knowledge. (more…)
When it comes to the obligations contained within employment contracts, employers have the following duties towards their employees, all of which they are expected to know and uphold at all times. (more…)
The Disability Discrimination Act defines a disabled person as someone who has “a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. Given the importance of adhering to the DDA, here is a brief insight into this definition.
By “substantial and long-term adverse effect”, we are to understand that the disability does not necessarily have to be severe to class as disabling, but must be more an a trivial injury and likely to last more than a year.
By “normal day-to-day activities”, we are to understand that the disability must affect one of the following: mobility; manual dexterity; physical co-ordination; continence; ability to lift, carry or otherwise move everyday objects; speech, hearing or eyesight; memory or ability to concentrate, learn or understand; or perception of the risk of physical danger.
From the above explication, it should be clear that the DDA definition of “disabled” includes both physical and mental impairment. Mental impairment includes all recognised mental illnesses and learning difficulties, whereas physical impairment includes adverse changes to a part of the body caused through illness, by accident or from birth. This includes long-term health conditions, progressive conditions and conditions affecting the senses. Examples include people with diabetes, multiple sclerosis, HIV and cancer, as well as people with sight, hearing and mobility impairments.
Knowing what counts as a disability is integral to adhereing to lawful conduct under the DDA. For more help and advice, seek out employment solicitors.
Anybody that has ever picked up a tabloid, or had one thrust into their hand outside a tube station, will have read about extreme cases of religious discrimination in the workplace. Oftentimes these stories are deliberately picked for their controversial nature, yet written as if events of this magnitude are commonplace example of religious discrimination. This is not the case; religious discrimination is a genuine concern for employers because it is not always as obvious as the cases we hear about in the news – most the time it is subtler and difficult to resolve without an understanding of what it is and what should be done about it. In the next couple of posts I hope to clarify some issues relating to this type of discrimination in the workplace, in the hope that it will be of some use to employers and employees alike.
Religious discrimination poses a problem for employers; they cannot make employment decisions based on an employee’s religion, but yet they must take employee’s religious beliefs into account when making business decisions. Cases of religious discrimination often occur when a workplace rule directly contradicts a religious practice, putting religious employees at a detriment to other workers. In cases like these, the employer has limited options; they can change the business practice to accommodate religious rules, or they can refuse to change the business practice on the grounds that it is a proportionate way of achieving a business goal. Both options require detailed consideration as well as insight into what the law demands from employers and employees.
In my next post I will examine these issues by giving some examples of how employers are expected to deal with religious practices that can conflict with business rules, without getting on the wrong side of employment solicitors.
Did you know that around 20% of the UK workforce have disabilities, yet they find it thrice as hard to secure employment? Given the fact that most disabled people can work without any (or very little) special assistance, the Disability Discrimination Act is in place to make it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in recruitment and employment. Discrimination under the DDA comes in two forms; direct discrimination and disability-related discrimination; understanding the differences can help both employers and employees.
Direct discrimination under the DDA occurs when am employer treats a disabled person less favourably than a non-disabled person, purely on the grounds of their disability. There is no defence of justification for direct discrimination under the DDA and hence it should not be confused with disability related discrimination, which can be justified.
Disability related discrimination makes up the majority of disability discrimination tribunals and is to do with treating people less favourably for reasons to do with how their disability manifests itself. If the employer can show that making reasonable adjustments to cater for a disability is not reasonable or practical, then the court can rule that there is substantial reason for treating the personal differently.
Last time I explained that religious discrimination is a real concern for employers because it is often hard to detect and solve, yet often results in employment solicitors being called and large tribunals being awarded. For example, although employers must be prepared to interview candidates from a range of faiths and religions when recruiting, they cannot directly ask candidates about their faith or the manner in which they practice their religion. This often results in employers being unaware of contradictions between their company’s rules and an employee’s religious practices until the problem manifests itself. When this occurs, the employer can change the business rules to accommodate the religious practice, or they can claim that the company practice is a proportionate way of achieving a business goal that cannot be changed. Here are a couple of examples of how employers and employees are expected to deal with commonplace contradictions of company rules and religious practice:
In cases of rules relating to dress and uniform, employers are usually expected to make changes to their dress codes to accommodate compulsory religious clothing. This is because most uniforms can accommodate items like turbans and burkhas with no detriment to the performance or safety of the employee. However, should the religious clothing contradict health and safety legislation, the employer may have a legitimate argument to refuse to change their dress code to accept items of clothing that will put the employee or company at risk.
A similar common-sense guideline is followed for cases when employees ask for time off for religious observance. Whilst it is deemed unreasonable for employers to refuse to give a religious employee time off for religious festivals or prayer, they are not expected to provide paid leave for religious observance and can request that employees make up any missed working hours.
The next post will be my last on religious discrimination and will serve to outline to purpose of religious discrimination laws and what it considered a “religion” in this day and age.
Over the last two posts I have explained and given examples of the fact that laws relating to religious discrimination in the workplace are used to resolve conflicts between company rules and religious practices in an understanding way. The purpose of these laws is to promote and encourage tolerance and understanding of religious faiths, in order to help people from different faiths integrate into the workplace without feeling under pressure to compromise their faith. Most the time a few basic changes to company practices can help make this possible and in these cases employers are expected to change.
To this extent, laws relating to religious discrimination protect a broad range of faiths and religions – not just the traditional, organised religions like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism. In fact, many will be pleased to know that the same laws apply to protect those who have no religious belief whatsoever, people whose belief is unrecognised by the religious group they affiliate themselves with and even those who are the sole practitioners of their faith. However, although religious beliefs include both theistic beliefs and non-theistic moral beliefs as to the nature of right and wrong; personal preferences or social, political or economic philosophies are not deemed to be religious beliefs, no matter how strongly they are held.
Although courts often rule in favour of religious employees, it must be remembered that the laws are not in place to punish or restrict employers, but to promote understanding and integration. In cases where religious practices genuinely compromise business goals or employee safety, the law is in place to protect the employer, not to rule in favour of outrageous cases like those we read in the tabloids. Furthermore, employees must be able to prove that their religious beliefs are a genuine part of their life – they cannot simply make them up in order to treated differently, then seek out employment solicitors when their pretend-views aren’t respected!