HR Articles

In People Management magazine, Deborah Scales, Associate at Clarkslegal LLP, comments on a recent tribunal ruling in which a factory supervisor who handed in her keys in an “anxious state” and said “I’m done” did not resign and was unfairly dismissed.

Twitter has made headlines yet again after its new owner, Elon Musk, has given employees an ultimatum: work long hours at high intensity, or quit and receive 3 months’ severance pay. Employees were given until Thursday 17 November 2022 to make a decision, which was around 24 hours after the ultimatum was given.

Earlier this month, Twitter decided to dismiss around half of its employees (around 3,700 people) due to cost-saving reasons. Staff received a memo from the company stating that there would be mass layoffs, and then an hour later, employees were denied access to their work systems. This happened around 3am UK time, so most of Twitter’s UK employees were asleep. 

If an employee or worker is dismissed because they leave or refuse to return to a workplace that they reasonably believe is dangerous they may have a claim for automatically unfairly dismissal. That means they do not need the usual two years’ service to submit a claim to the employment tribunal.

Employees with two year’s continuous service have the right not to be unfairly dismissed (and no length of services is required in cases of ‘automatically unfair’ dismissals). But can a dismissal be deemed fair without an appeal hearing? 

A settlement agreement (or compromise agreement as it used to be known) is a contract between an employee and employer.

The very public resignation of Sir Philip Rutnam has clearly generated the media coverage he anticipated.

His Honour Judge Auerbach has reiterated the importance of properly pleading the case in his decision in Upton-Hansen Architects (“UHA”) v Gyftaki.

The claimant was a financial accountant for a charity called Phoenix House. She claimed that she was being improperly treated by her company during a large restructuring.

In Awan v ICTS Ltd the EAT found an implied term that where an employee is contractually entitled to long-term disability benefits, they will not be dismissed for continuing incapacity. The Claimant had a contractual entitlement to a long-term disability benefit plan for the duration of his employment.