Weekly Issue 240

Slow Progress for women onto boards

Cranfield School of Management has published a progress report on the recommendations made by Lord Davies in his February review into women on company boards (see weekly LELR 207).

Dismissal rights

Employees need a year’s continuous service to bring a claim of unfair dismissal, unless the dismissal is automatically unfair (for instance, for asserting a statutory right). In M-Choice UK Ltd v Aalders, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said that when an employee is dismissed with notice giving them a year’s service, but are then summarily dismissed before the year is up, the second dismissal trumps the first one.

Out of the frying pan

The Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) says that it is unfair to dismiss an employee on health and safety grounds in certain circumstances. In Oudahar v Esporta Group Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said that Tribunals first have to ask whether the relevant criteria in the law had been met; and then whether the employer dismissed the employee solely because they had tried to protect themselves from danger.