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FL Memo Ltd © 2007 |
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Employment Memo 2007 Newsletter Issue 2 |
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RECENT CASES |
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Parents’ and carers’ rights Maternity rights Type of job on return from maternity leave ¶4450, ¶4474 An employee on OML is entitled to return to the same job in which she was employed before her absence. An employee on AML is entitled to return to the same job except where it is not reasonably practicable, in which circumstances she must be given another suitable and appropriate job. In the first appellate case on the meaning of “the same job”, the EAT held that where the employee is entitled to come back to the same job there should be as little change as possible in her working life, so as to avoid adding to the burdens which will inevitably exist simply because she has a young infant making new demands upon her. Where, conversely, the employee’s right is to return to another suitable and appropriate job, the appropriateness of the new job should be considered in the light of the nature of her old job, and the content of her old job should be construed narrowly. The employer already has a protection in terms of his right to place the employee in a different but suitable job. In this case, a primary school teacher was employed before maternity leave teaching a reception class (pupils aged 4-5). On her return, she was asked to teach a year two class (pupils aged 6-7). Her employer justified this request by saying that it was a settled principle of job allocation in her school that teachers ordinarily changed classes every two years. On the facts, the EAT agreed that the teacher was employed to teach more widely than merely to a reception class, and in consequence her employer had indeed allowed her to return to the same job. Blundell v Governing Body of St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School and anor [2007] EAT case 0329/06 Comment There was one limited ground, however, in regard to which the employee’s appeal was granted. When the decision was taken as to which class the employee would teach, no effort had been made to consult to with her as to which class she would prefer to teach. In losing the chance to state her preference, the EAT held, the teacher had lost something that she might reasonably think it of value to have been afforded. Remedies Discrimination against adopter ¶4771 Where an employer dismisses an employee for a reason relating to adoption leave (¶4767) the dismissal will be automatically unfair. In this case, a tribunal considered an employee C who had been intending to take adoption leave, when she was dismissed, ostensibly for dishonesty. On a scrutiny of the facts, the tribunal concluded that the charges against her had been fabricated. The initiative for the dismissal had come from a senior manager, H. The tribunal found that H had orchestrated the employee’s dismissal with the intention of preventing her from taking adoption leave. Her dismissal was unfair. Coulombeau v Enterprise Rent-A-Car (UK) Ltd [2007] ET Case 2600296/06 |