November 2020 marks the twenty fifth anniversary of disability rights legislation in the U.K. It is a time to reflect on the fight for rights by disabled campaigners and others that finally resulted in the ground-breaking and much needed legislation. But what has been achieved and what next when it comes to tackling discrimination in the workplace and beyond?
18 November 2020
On 10 November HMRC published its updated guidance on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Eagerly awaited by employment lawyers – who hoped it would answer all our questions on how the extended scheme will work – it sadly raises yet more queries and fails to provide the certainty that employers so badly need right now in order to plan for the future.
17 November 2020
New analysis published by the TUC shows that disabled workers now earn a fifth (20%) less than non-disabled workers. The analysis found that the pay gap for disabled workers has widened to £3,800 per year – an increase of £800 over the last year for someone working a 35 hour week.
13 November 2020
Research by Protect has found that 41% of employees with Covid-19 concerns were ignored by their employers and 20% of whistleblowers were dismissed for raising concerns.
12 November 2020
The Government has announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will now remain open until the end of March 2021, with employees receiving 80% of their current salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500.
11 November 2020
The Guardian report that a study by economists from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Zurich have found that women were significantly more likely to be furloughed than men doing the same type of job and 75% of furloughed men had their wages topped up beyond the 80% provided by the Government, while 65% of women enjoyed this financial benefit.
6 November 2020
The Guardian report that the NHS, the law firm Linklaters and the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers are among the large companies that have promised to cumulatively hire 10,000 black interns amid a push to improve the diversity of the UK’s professional industries.
5 November 2020
Personnel Today report that a solicitor who groped his secretary, told racist jokes and ran through the offices of his employer with a pretend Ku Klux Klan hood has been found guilty of sexual harassment and racist behaviour.
4 November 2020
The implied term of trust and confidence requires employers and employees not to ‘conduct themselves’, without reasonable and proper cause, in a manner calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust between employer and employee.
3 November 2020
Can an employee's failure to return to work after maternity leave be regarded as an acceptance of a employer’s repudiatory breach for the purposes of constructive unfair dismissal where she has not actually told the employer that she considers this to be the case?
2 November 2020
