header-logo header-logo

Employment law brief: 9 January 2020

08 January 2020 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7869 / Categories: Features , Employment
printer mail-detail
13677
Ian Smith gets on his bike post-Christmas to deliver a welcome refresher course for employment geeks & those with a general interest
  • Is a courier a ‘worker’ and where are the limits of whistleblowing protection?
  • The legal status of a tribunal and how the non-technical approach to early conciliation can disadvantage the claimant, not just the respondent.

Given the result of the general election, it is now not urgent for employment lawyers to re-read the classic texts and dig out old law school notes to remind themselves what a trade union is and just what can be lawfully done in the course of industrial action. Instead, this first column of 2020 concentrates on two substantive issues of individual employment law (is a courier a ‘worker’ and where are the limits of whistleblowing protection?) and two procedural issues (the legal status of a tribunal and how the non-technical approach to early conciliation can disadvantage the claimant, not just the respondent).

Legal status of motorbike couriers

With the appeal

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Russell-Cooke—Susanna Heley

Russell-Cooke—Susanna Heley

Legal director appointment bolsters public and regulatory team

Slater Heelis—five appointments

Slater Heelis—five appointments

Firm appoints training partner and four new trainees

Bolt Burdon Kemp—Natasha Orr

Bolt Burdon Kemp—Natasha Orr

Firm strengthens military claims team with senior associate hire

NEWS
Government plans for offender ‘restriction zones’ risk creating ‘digital cages’ that blur punishment with surveillance, warns Henrietta Ronson, partner at Corker Binning, in this week's issue of NLJ
Louise Uphill, senior associate at Moore Barlow LLP, dissects the faltering rollout of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in this week's NLJ
Judgments are ‘worthless without enforcement’, says HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, senior circuit judge and chair of the Civil Justice Council’s enforcement working group. In this week's NLJ, she breaks down the CJC’s April 2025 report, which identified systemic flaws and proposed 39 reforms, from modernising procedures to protecting vulnerable debtors
Writing in NLJ this week, Katherine Harding and Charlotte Finley of Penningtons Manches Cooper examine Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court ruling that narrowed what counts as matrimonial property, and its potential impact upon claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
back-to-top-scroll