Employment and Trade Union Law
Last month the EHRC supervised a fiasco when it issued guidance that Long Covid could not a disability. It was a legal nonsense but, given the position it holds, the guidance was damaging in potentially giving employers a false sense of security and dissuading victims of discrimination asserting their rights. I posted a number of … Continue reading Second Employment Tribunal determines Long Covid can be a disability
Over the weekend the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued a statement stating it was not its position that Long Covid (LC) was a disability. So irked was I that it prompted not one but two blogposts, the first on the statement and the second on how the Employment Tribunal have treated Long Covid … Continue reading EHRC ‘clarifies’ its position on Long Covid as disability
Following on from the last post on EHRC's ill-advised guidance to managers that employers do not consider Long Covid to be a disability under the Equality Act 2010 I thought I would take a look at whether and how this has been considered by employment tribunals to date. Because of delays in tribunal processes and … Continue reading Long Covid at the Employment Tribunal
The Employment Appeal Tribunal's decision in Knightly v Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Trust (2022) is another in a line of cases on the interrelation of the range of reasonable responses test in unfair dismissal and the proportionality test in discrimination cases. The disabled claimant who was dismissed after a long sickness absence claimed that … Continue reading Discrimination in Dismissal Process does not make Dismissal unfair.
Section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to treat a disabled person unfavourably for something that arises in consequence of the person's disability. The Act itself defines the unlawful treatment in this way: 15 Discrimination arising from disability (1) A person (A) discriminates against a disabled person (B) if—(a)A treats B unfavourably … Continue reading Is it Proportionate?
In recent months I have assisted in a case in which a worker was on the brink of dismissal for absences that were entirely attributable to her experience of menopause (thankfully averted, the dismissal that is). In another a worker was subject to a misconduct allegation for an emotional and out of character outburst that … Continue reading Menopause, Disability and the Equality Act 2010.
It has been covered a few times and will hopefully be clear to readers that if a worker is absent from work and the reason for the absence is because of a disability related reason then the employer may is likely to be under a duty to make disability related adjustments if, because of those … Continue reading Short term sickness absences and disability
When does an employer have constructive knowledge of disability?
Can wearing a contact lens correct a disability?
Just over a year ago the Employment Appeal Tribunal issued its decision in Lofty v Hamis t/a First Café and in its wake there was a lot of online discussions about whether precancerous conditions come within the deemed disability provisions of the Equality Act 2010. Normally, in order to be a disability for the purposes … Continue reading Pre-Cancer
The Supreme Court has recently issued its judgement in Williams v The Trustees of Swansea University Pension and Assurance Scheme, a case that brings to a close a long running employment dispute on the scope of the protection against discrimination arising from disability in section 15 of the Equality Act 2010. Specifically, the case centred on … Continue reading Discrimination Arising from Disability and Unfavourable Treatment
A mere six month's ago a group of MPs reported that the Department of Work and Pension's Access to Work scheme was failing to reach the people it needed and that further work was needed to increase its coverage. The then Minister for Disabled People Mark Harper MP (Con) encouraged all business to utilise the … Continue reading Access to Work Funding to be Cut
In recent weeks the Employment Appeal Tribunals judgement in Thomson v Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has been published. The key issue which has been attracting comment is the endorsement of the first tier tribunal's decision that a dismissal may be unfair because of the choice of the decision maker, even when there is no … Continue reading Disability and Disciplinary Dismissals
If a person has type 2 Diabetes are they necessarily disabled under the Equality Act 2010? This was the question considered by the Employment Appeals Tribunal in Metroline Travel Ltd v Stoute [2015] UKEAT 0302_14_2601. The claimant had type 2 diabetes but was not on medication for this but did control his condition by controlling … Continue reading Is Diabetes Necessarily a Disability?
Employment Writes 