Backhouse Solicitors’ blog
April is always an important month for employment law and this year was no exception. Here we outline the new regulations introduced this year as well as other recent important changes: National Minimum Wage – Effective from 6th April, the National Minimum Wage increased as follows: [...]
As Pride month approaches, our employment law team takes a look at transgender discrimination in the workplace and in particular what employers can do to avoid such behaviour. What is Transgender Discrimination? Transgender people are those whose personal identity or gender does not correspond with their [...]
New National Minimum Wage (“NMW”) rates for 2017 came into force on 1 April, just 6 months after the last increase. Updates were previously introduced every 1 October but from 2017 onwards this has been moved to 1 April. The new hourly rates are as follows: [...]
An Employment Tribunal has recently ruled that a beauty therapist was unfairly dismissed and suffered sex discrimination after she was made redundant following a row over childcare arrangements. The employee had worked at a fitness centre for almost 10 years and had a flexible working agreement [...]
The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal recently handed down its decision in the so-called 'gay cake' case, more properly known as Lee v Ashers Baking Company. This was an interesting example of how to treat conflicts between different types of discrimination – in this case discrimination [...]
Gender Pay Reporting regulations are due to come into force on 6 April 2017 and will apply to public and private sector employers with 250 or more employees. At the moment, the government is not concerned with forcing smaller employees to report their data but it [...]
The Ministry of Justice has just published its review of the introduction of Employment Tribunal fees in July 2013. Fees have been a controversial subject with employers’ groups claiming that there were too many nuisance claims before fees, and unions and other employee bodies claiming that [...]
Buying a house is one of the biggest investments you will make in your lifetime. In this article we look at how to choose the right legal adviser to make sure the conveyancing process runs smoothly and you don’t get any nasty surprises after you move [...]
Last year the widely publicized “high heels case” hit the headlines when PwC receptionist Nicola Thorp was sent home without pay after refusing to wear high heels at work. A petition causing for this practice to be made illegal was then signed by over 150,000 people, [...]
A recent Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in the case of Herry v Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council considered whether long term stress can constitute a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The answer in this case was no – not by itself. In this [...]