Glasgow Employment Law Blog

A Polish woman has been awarded £5,000 after she was banned from speaking her native language with colleagues in the workplace.

An employment tribunal ruled that Magdalena Konieczna was subjected to racial harassment in her workplace in Aberdeen in what could be a landmark case. The worker had spoken to other members of staff in Polish as some of them were unable to speak or fully understand instructions in English.

However, her HR manager banned her from speaking unless it was in English. Nicol Hosie argued that speaking in Polish in the workplace was “more likely to create a greater health and safety risk than reduce it”.

The ban on speaking Polish applied to break times and at any time when in the workplace.

Uber employees have taken legal action in an attempt to become employees of the controversial taxi company.

Currently under the contracts offered by Uber, those operating for Uber are self-employed contractors. However, an employee claim is seeking to change their status to employees of the company rather than such contractors. As a contractor, Uber were able to not have the same employment rights in place that other taxi companies had, thus leading competitors to claim that they had an advantage, especially regarding finances.

Five swimming centre managers have been dismissed after claims that staff were paid more overtime than colleagues at other sporting facilities. However, satff are set to take legal action citing unfair dismissal.

The dismissals come following a probe by Glasgow Life, Glasgow City Council, arms-length management organisation. The investigation found that 33% more overtime had been signed off at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre than any other Glasgow Life run site. The main issue was that the overtime was given when the pool was undergoing a £14-million refurbishment for the Commonwealth Games.

Compromise agreements terminate any employer- employee relationship. At Employment Law Glasgow we are seeing an increase in requests for advice on situations where employers need to consider downsizing with possible redundancies but find themselves concerned about making decisions that have employment law implications. Very often this leads to compromise agreements being considered. Why?

Welcome to the news section of our employment law site Employment Law Glasgow. We will keep you up to date with changes in employment law. These changes occur very regularly in employment law cases and can be of massive significance to your case and that of many others.