Spring 2005 Newsletter Content Home Sweet Pension Anything To Declare? Death And Taxes His And Hers Oh, Gross! We Didn't Mean It Agassi Wins Time To Go It Could Be Worse... Trivial Pursuit Re: Mortgages A Marriage Made In... Time's Money Show Business Scam Of The Decade? Gift Aid Vat's Hot! Wait For It A Good Buy? Know Your Articles Rights And Wrongs

Rights And Wrongs If you are an employer, you have to be extremely careful to respect your workers' statutory rights, or you can find yourself on the wrong end of an award from an Employment Tribunal. Sometimes it can seem that the scales are tilted heavily in favour of the worker, who may appear to be able to get away with being incompetent or lazy or dishonest and somehow still be immune from sacking. In fact, the rules do contain some balance - in the past, employers had so much power compared to the worker that the individuals are considered to need more protection, but that protection is still not unlimited. A couple of recent cases illustrate the point. In one, a man was told by his ex-partner that he would have to look after their two-year old son on a particular day while she visited her disabled sister. He applied for annual leave, but it could not be guaranteed; he applied for parental leave, but was told it was not possible, because his job could not be covered. He took the day off anyway. His pay was docked and he had to go through a disciplinary procedure, in spite of 20 years' service without a previous disciplinary offence. He appealed against the deduction from his wages. The Employment Appeals Tribunal held that employees have a right to parental leave in certain circumstances, but not for single days. The minimum period for which he would have a legal right would be a week. In another case, a woman was dismissed while she was pregnant. She applied for compensation, because dismissal on grounds of pregnancy is automatically unfair in law. The employer gave evidence that he had not known that she was pregnant, and the dismissal was for other unrelated reasons. The Employment Tribunal believed him, and a further appeal rejected her argument that 'he must have known'. If he had asked, it would have been an invasion of her privacy; he could not be expected to guess, if she did not tell him. If she had done so, she would almost certainly have been protected from dismissal. But the employer was in the clear. These two cases are reported in Accountancy, December 2004 (p.104) - South Central Trains Ltd v Rodway (2004) 746 ILRB 12 and Forster v Cartwright Black Solicitors EAT/0179/04.