Employment Law Updates

How would you feel if your employer was the largest employer in town and it chose to close down its site? What would you do if you were employed by the same employer for the last 10, 20 or 30 years and do not remember what applying for jobs feels like? What would be your chances to secure a new job and does it mean you would have to relocate in order to find a new job?

James Trevor Oliver MBE, more commonly known as Jamie Oliver, has spent over two decades in the public eye as a celebrity chef and best selling author. Last month 22 out of his 25 Jamie’s Italian restaurants collapsed, leaving over 1300 people facing redundancy. What went wrong for Jamie’s Italian empire?

Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group has recently been in the news as high-street retailers continue to struggle to remain relevant. In case you didn’t know, the Arcadia Group is the umbrella corporation behind many of the High Street’s big names, such as Top Shop, Top Man, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, Burton and BHS to name but a few.

An otherwise redundant employee who unreasonably refuses an offer of suitable alternative employment will not be entitled to a redundancy payment. In Dunne v Colin and Avril Ltd, Mrs Dunne worked for her previous employer for more than 12 years as a book-keeper. She was then transferred to a new employer which took over when her old employer became insolvent. She was employed on the basis of a 24-hour week but the new employer felt that it could only offer her 16 hours. This was not acceptable to her and the new employer offered her a further 8 hours a week working in the warehouse. When she refused, this offer she was dismissed and the employer refused to give her a redundancy payment.

We all make mistakes at work, and serious errors can get us into trouble. Indeed, as per the case of Adesokan v Sainsbury’s Supermarkets that a single incident of negligence can – if serious enough – lead to summary dismissal.