This month, Ian Smith focuses on part-time and zero hours conundrums, and shares a tale of compulsory retirement from the city of dreaming spires
- Part-timers—the reason for less favourable treatment. Effect of suspension on a zero-hours contract. Asserting statutory rights—a question of timing. Age discrimination justification—you pays your money and takes your choice.
The employment lawyer’s plea/cop-out ‘It’s all a question of fact’ can be seen writ large in the last cases considered here, both against Oxford University by compulsorily retired professors. Before these, there are cases this month on less favourable treatment of part-timers, the effect of a suspension on a person under a zero-hours contract (with the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) going back on a previous but difficult case of its own) and the assertion of statutory rights (with the EAT suggesting a way around what could be a possible limitation on the claimant’s rights here).
Part-timers
The difference between the causation test of ‘but for’ and the motivation test of ‘on the ground that’ may seem
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