http://www.equality-ne.co.uk Equality North East is a comprehensive website offering fact sheets, a search facility, news items, best practice information relating to race, gender, disability and work-life balance. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:00:00 GMT http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6276 The Commission welcomes the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruling that a law firm was wrong to force a partner to retire at 65 on the assumption that his performance would decline when he reached that age. In its first intervention in an age discrimination appeal case, the Equality and Human Rights Commission welcomed the ruling by the EAT. The EAT found that ‘non-employee’ workers such as magistrates, contract workers and company partners cannot be forced into retirement at 65 on the basis of assumptions about age. Mr Justice Elias made his ruling in the case of Seldon v Clarkson, Wright and Jakes in which the Commission intervened. Leslie Seldon was a senior partner at a Kent law firm, who wanted a post-retirement role despite the firm’s rule of compulsory retirement at 65. He brought an unsuccessful age discrimination case against Clarkson, Wright and Jakes after his proposal was rejected. Mr Seldon appealed the decision and was successful on one ground of the appeal. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6275 A County Durham charity has become the first in the region to gain an Investors in Diversity award. Social inclusion charity Developing Initiatives Supporting Communities (DISC) has been given the standard by the National Centre for Diversity. DISC is the second charity in the UK to gain the award, which celebrates positive organisational cultures where everyone is genuinely recognised as different but equal. The National Centre for Diversity assessor Jan Dominey wrote in her assessment: "DISC struck me as being the nicest organisation I had seen in almost 15 years of this type of work." She praised DISC for actively managing diversity and challenging staff to think about the way they view people. Pauline Gill, a skills, employment and training manager in North East England and one of DISC’s diversity champions, said: "Diversity is not about saying that we employ certain types of people, or have installed a certain number extra-wide doors for wheelchair users. It’s about how we get our staff to challenge their thinking, question their views and genuinely accept difference. "Most of our staff work on a one-to-one basis with people. If they feel negative about someone because of the way they look, talk or dress, it’s more difficult to build up a really positive relationship. Diversity is also not just about us. It’s also about us working with other organisations, and encouraging employers to think more positively about employing people with a history of substance misuse, offending or mental health issues." For more about [link http://www.disc-vol.org.uk]DISC[/link] http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6274 The UK government has been criticised for failing to bring new rights for disabled people into law. Ministers were supposed to have ratified the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities by the end of 2008. A committee of both Houses of Parliament said this was "extremely disappointing" and risked "alienating" disabled people. The government says it hopes to complete ratification by the spring. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6273 Preston Council plans to pay staff nearly GBP2 more than the minimum wage. A total of 101 out of 1,600 workers will get a pay rise to GBP7.45 an hour, under plans voted in by Preston councillors last week to adopt a "living wage", according to the Lancashire Evening Post. The national minimum wage (NMW), which went up in October, stands at GBP5.73 an hour. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6272 Scrapping the Working Time Directive opt-out will negatively impact on profits, businesses have warned. In a survey of 3,000 employers by staff management consultancy Kronos, 50% of respondents were concerned that removing the exemption would negatively affect their sales and profits. Extra recruitment costs and a weakened customer service were some of the main worries, organisations warned. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6271 Age discrimination law and the default retirement age has been thrown back into the spotlight after an employment appeal tribunal (EAT) ruling, weeks before the final decision on Heyday is expected. An EAT last week ruled that Leslie Seldon, a former senior partner at law firm Clarkson, Wright and Jakes, was wrongly forced to retire at 65, because of a discriminatory assumption that his work had "dropped off" since passing the default retirement age. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6270 A 56-year-old married man who was repeatedly taunted at work about being gay because he lives in Brighton has won his case at the Court of Appeal. An employment tribunal and an appeal tribunal had both rejected his claims of discrimination. Stephen English suffered years of abuse and insinuation from colleagues at Thomas Sanderson Blinds, based near Portsmouth, where he had worked in sales. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6269 The Conservative Party has introduced a Private Members' Bill on equal pay and flexible working as part of its "Fair Play on Women’s Pay" campaign. The Equal Pay and Flexible Working Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 8 December 2008 by Baroness Bolton, Conservative Shadow Minister for Children, Schools and Families. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6268 MSPs to investigate effectiveness of locking up women with mental illness A Holyrood committee is to look into the experience of women offenders in prison and whether it effectively prevents reoffending. One particular question wil be the effectiveness of locking up female offenders with mental health problems. The Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee has launched a call for written evidence to inform its inquiry into whether prison can effectively treat and rehabilitate women offenders. The inquiry will cover the background of female offenders, their experience in prison and the extent to which prison prevents women from reoffending. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6267 Pay awards have overtaken inflation for the first time in more than two-and-a-half years, offering UK workers a little festive cheer among the gathering economic gloom, according to pay specialists Industrial Relations Services (IRS). The median basic pay award in the three months to the end of November 2008 was worth 3.8%, while the equivalent figure for inflation was 3%. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6266 The employment prospects of some of the UK’s ethnic minorities have failed to improve and may well have declined markedly since the 1970s, according to research. A study by research professors at both Manchester and Oxford universities found that minority ethnic groups had a much harder chance of finding work as their white counterparts, and that employment for ethnics had got worse since the 1970s. The news comes as the number of people out of work grew to 1.86 million in the three months to October – up 137,000 from the three months to July. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6265 There have been mixed reactions to yesterday’s news that the European Parliament has voted to end the UK’s opt-out from the maximum 48-hour working week. An absolute majority of MEPs – more than 393 – was needed to confirm the Employment Committee’s amendments to the Working Time Directive, including the opt-out. The final vote was 421 in favour of the amendments, 273 against them. The TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, welcomed the decision, saying: "This is an early Christmas present for Britain’s hardest workers, and for the families who see too little of them. Members of the European Parliament have courageously defied the abusers and the slave-drivers over the loss of the ‘right’ to work people till they drop. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6264 Nearly half of employers do not reward staff who work beyond their contracted hours, new research has revealed. A survey of 500 employers by communications giant T-Mobile found 46% of organisations did not give extra money or praise to employees that worked late, or above their normal working hours. More than half (59%) of employers did not consider late working in the office as an indication of how hard they worked, the survey revealed. Full story.... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6263 The European Parliament has voted to scrap the UK’s opt-out from the Working Time Directive (WTD), limiting the working week to an average of 48 hours per individual. MEPs voted by 421 to 273 to end the UK’s exemption to the WTD, which currently allows staff to voluntarily work more than 48 hours per week. The vote will now go to conciliation for a maximum of eight weeks while both the European Council and the European Parliament try to agree on the future of the opt-out. Full story... http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/news/articles/6262 Female consultants face a bigger gender pay gap than women in IT, finance, retail or the public and voluntary sectors, according to a report. The poll of more than 2,400 executives earning at least GBP50,000 per year in the above sectors found that men earned an average of 19% more than their female equivalents. Full story....