News 08-15 October 2020

As another week stumbles by and the economy coughs and splutters, riddled with COVID, an array of articles has come to attention and we share them here for your delectation.

Once again, the COVID dominant landscape yields the majority of this weeks News.  New self-isolation rules come into effect with the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation)(England) Regulations 2020.  The implications for employers are fines of £1,000 initially but £10,000 for repeat offenders who fail to observe the new rules. (1) Baker McKenzie highlight the various criminal offences which employers can face in their COVID Alert.(2) An article by the Independent reveals the widening of inequality in the UK as a result of the COVID  pandemic.(3)

The Employment Tribunals Service has published its 2019/20 annual statistics. (4) There are a number of court judgments which are noteworthy this week.  In times of mass redundancies a recent judgment found that an employee who resigned after she had been ‘mapped’ to a new role in a redundancy process was constructively dismissed. (5) In another case the High Court found an employer was not ‘vicariously responsible’ for an injury sustained by an employee after a colleague played a practical joke on them.(6)   In the case of Premier Engineering (Lincoln) Limited (“Premier”) v MW High Tech Projects UK Limited (“MW”) the Technology & Construction court found massive inconsistencies in timesheets and biometric data when compared to turnstile records, all recording numbers of workers on site in a claim valued at £1.3m. (7)

Finally, this week the TUC has released two reports on inequality and poor pay & conditions.  The first is a call for Ethnicity gap pay reporting following the publication of Office of National Statistics Report on the issue.(8)  Secondly, is a call to stand up to Amazon to address workers rights and poor working conditions. (9)