Employment Update - Summer 2009

This update keeps you informed of new developments in employment law and focuses particularly on an extension to the scope of disability discrimination legislation and a Court of Appeal ruling concerning an employer reserving its position in relation to facts which it later attempts to rely on as grounds for summary dismissal.

A Costly Mistake

A tribunal has ruled that an employer is obliged to continue paying a part time bank worker her full time salary, despite a mistake.

The claimant had worked for a bank for a number of years in a part time role and in 2006 there was a TUPE transfer. Prior to the transfer there was an expectation amongst employees that rates of pay would increase. Miss Keenan was on a salary of £9,500 prior to the transfer; afterwards she received a statement that her basic salary was £17,000, which she regarded as a substantial and overdue pay rise. Barclays never queried the discrepancy; the bank even provided a reference confirming her