SOURCE CURRENCY
Update 79 (December 2017)

This release includes updates to: Divisions A (Recruitment); C1 (During Employment: Remuneration, benefits and deductions); C3 ( (Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Rights); C7 (During Employment: Holidays and sickness); D3 (Termination of Employment: Unfair dismissal); D4 (Termination of Employment: Redundancy); E3 (Discrimination: Disability Discrimination); E4 (Discrimination: Age Discrimination); F (Trade Unions); and H1 (Employment Tribunals: Practice and Procedure).

Key points in this update include:

• A summary of how it is expected that tribunals will deal with reimbursing tribunal fees and handling claims that were rejected because of non-payment of fees, following the Supreme Court’s decision in R (on the application of Unison) v Lord Chancellor that the government’s introduction of fees for employment tribunals was unlawful.


• Overtime pay should be taken into account when calculating holiday pay if the pattern of overtime working is so regular as to make it ‘normal’ (Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council v Willetts and Others).


• Contributions that an employer makes towards an employee’s pension should be taken into account when calculating a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating the maximum compensation award (52 weeks’ pay) for unfair dismissal, says the EAT in University of Sunderland v Drossou UKEAT/0341/16.


• Illustrations of the importance of getting the name of the employer exactly right when starting early conciliation; and if it is not right, then a fresh early conciliation application should be made immediately (Giny v VSNA Transport Ltd UKEAT/0317/16 and Chard v Trowbridge Office Cleaning Services Ltd UKEAT/0254/16).


• The correct amount of annual salary to be deducted from employees who take strike action is 1/365th of the annual salary per day unless the contract of employment clearly states otherwise (Hartley and Others v King Edward VI College). This overturns previous cases which had held that the correct deduction was 1/260th of annual salary.


• An illustration of the impact that the choice of ‘bargaining unit’ can have on a trade union’s application for recognition and how disputes about whether a bargaining unit is appropriate are resolved (Lidl Ltd v Central Arbitration Committee).


• How the ‘Specified Method’ of collective bargaining, which may be imposed on employers who fail to agree collective bargaining arrangements with recognised trade unions, applies to non-contractual arrangements – in this case, the company’s rostering arrangements (British Airline Pilots’ Association v Jet2.com Ltd).