The 2006 Recruiter employment law quiz

New legislation, employment tribunals, discrimination cases, compensation … 2006 has been another busy year legally for the recruitment industry. Are you up to date with the latest developments? Try this quiz by Rebecca Peedell and Jonathan Arr of City la

1 On 1 January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania will become members of the European Union. However, the the rights of Bulgarians and Romanians to work in the UK will be restricted. Which are the only two sectors of the UK economy that will be open to them initially?

(a) Food processing
(b) Manufacturing
(c) Agriculture
(d) The health service

2 After new age discrimination legislation came into force on 1 October, it was reported that UK recruitment agency Robert Walters had banned a number of potentially discriminatory words from its recruitment advertisements. Which of the following words was not banned?

(a) Vibrant
(b) Gravitas
(c) High-flyer
(d) Dependable

3 When an employment tribunal decided, to public outcry, that Ian Smith was due sick pay based on a total salary of £91,000 per year, what job had he been doing?

(a) Stockbroker
(b) Street lighting engineer
(c) Employment lawyer
(d) Trade union official
(e) A combination of two of the above jobs


4 In February 2006, Mr Fordyce was permitted to have his case against his local Conservative Association heard by a second employment tribunal. Why?

(a) Intimidation of witnesses by Conservative Central Office
(b) His barrister had overslept and had missed the hearing
(c) A member of the tribunal had fallen asleep
(d) He had been given the wrong date for the hearing

5 Royal Navy chaplain recently brought claims of discrimination and sexual harassment against the Navy. What were the grounds for the claim?

(a) Rude comments about the chaplain's style of dress
(b) Offensive remarks about the chaplain's physique
(c) The prevalence of hard-core pornography
(d) The chaplain was passed over for promotion


6 In the case of Anderson v Jarvis Hotels the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a hotel manager was entitled to full pay for what?

(a) Sleeping over at the hotel
(b) Sleeping at his home
(c) A six-week holiday in Barbados to alleviate work-related stress
(d) A six-month period of sick leave caused by work-related stress13

 

 

ANSWERS

1 (a) and (c) Home secretary John Reid has said that food processing and agriculture will be the only sectors initially open to low-skilled migrant workers from both countries. There will be 20,000 places under this scheme. Other avenues for entry will still be available, such as entry with a specific work permit or through a programme for highly skilled migrants. The restrictions may only last seven years, after which citizens of the new EU states will have the same right of movement as any other citizen. An estimated 600,000 Eastern European workers have come to the UK since 2004.

2 (d) Robert Walters warned staff that words such as “vibrant”, “gravitas” and “high-flyer” must not appear in any Robert Walters advertising. “Energetic”, “youthful”, “quick-learner”, “self-starter” and “experienced” are also among the words banned by the agency.

3 (e) Smith was both a street lighting engineer and a trade union official. In June 2002, Smith informed Birmingham City Council managers that he wished to exercise the option to be a full-time union official. The decision meant his salary arrangements would switch from a fluctuating weekly payment to an annual wage based on average pay over a preceding 13-week period — a calculation that resulted in an annual wage of £75,000 at that time. His immediate bosses agreed, but were overruled by Neil Dancer, the chief highway engineer, who told Smith he could not continue to claim overtime payments for trade union duties. Smith claimed (i) that the overtime payments should be included in his salary so that his pension would not be reduced and (ii) that his sick pay should include his overtime payments. An employment tribunal found in Smith’s favour and an out-of-court settlement was reached on his compensation.

4 (c) During the first hearing before the employment tribunal, one of the lay members appeared to have been asleep. Both parties raised the matter and agreed to continue, hoping that the lay member would stay awake. However, when the hearing resumed, the lay member again closed his eyes. The tribunal rejected Mr Fordyce’s complaint of unfair dismissal. He appealed (partly on the grounds that one of the tribunal members had been asleep). The employer argued that the employee had been aware of the problem but chose not to raise the issue and had waited to see the outcome of the hearing. The EAT said that as a core principle, an employment tribunal decision should be the decision of all three members, and so the case should be reheard.

5 (c) The chaplain, Reverend Mark Sharpe, a father of four, was appalled at the constant exposure of hardcore pornography. The Navy admitted sexual harassment but denied discrimination. An employment tribunal was told that the chaplain started his six-week Initial Sea Training (IST) course in 2004 but left within two weeks. When he complained about the pornography to IST staff he said he was told, “You need to learn to live with it.”

6 (a) The EAT held that a hotel manager required to sleep over regularly at the hotel was entitled to receive payment in respect of those periods, even if he had been asleep. Jarvis Hotels argued that although Anderson was required to sleep over at the hotel to attend to any emergencies, he was required to work on only one occasion in the nine-month period for which he was claiming. Jarvis Hotels further argued that the prospect of Anderson actually being required to carry out any work during those hours was so “insignificant” that it could not be reasonably categorised as working time with entitlement to payment under his contract of employment. The argument failed to convince the EAT, which concluded that any periods for which Anderson was contractually obliged to be at the hotel counted as “working time”, so he was entitled to be paid for them.

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