Weekly Issue 439

Benefits of National Living Wage

Around half of all employees set to benefit from the National Living Wage (NLW) work in industries where the increase in the wage bill will be just 0.6 per cent or less according to a new report by independent think-tank the Resolution Foundation.

Mental processes

When considering victimisation claims, tribunals must focus on the “mental processes of the putative discriminator” in order to decide whether the “protected act” influenced the decision of the managers to dismiss, according to the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust v Blake.

Disclosure

The law says that whistleblowers have to make a disclosure either to their employer or to someone who falls under the category of a “prescribed person”. In Schaathun v Executive & Business Aviation Support Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a claim for automatic unfair dismissal should not be struck out just because the employee did not tell her employer directly about the disclosure.