Discrimination
Welcome to Allen & Overy’s Employment Talk blog, sharing with you our views into the latest trends and risks on all forms of discrimination, including direct, indirect, victimisation, equal pay, harassment, bullying, dignity at work and diversity. We will share our insights on existing protected characteristics (sex, race, sexual orientation, age, transgender, religion, disability, maternity and pregnancy) as well as those coming through the back door such as caste and new categories of disability such as obesity.
Supreme Court widens rights for same-sex couples
11 August 2017 - Andrew Cork
The Supreme Court has ruled in two cases on the issue of whether new legislation has retrospective effect on pension rights. One case covers same-sex couples. The other case looks at part-timers. The Court ruled that the restriction in UK legislation allowing a surviving civil partner’s pension rights to be based on the member’s pension › Read More
Difference – why we can all learn something from children
23 June 2017 - Sarah Henchoz
In difficult times it is quite often children who can put a smile on our faces with the very matter-of-fact way in which they view the world around them. While we are all struggling to make sense of recent tragic events triggered in many ways by difference, it provides some comfort and hope to see › Read More
Cupid plc – is it time for a relationship policy?
14 February 2017 - David Merlin-Jones
St Valentine’s Day: time to shower other halves with flowers, chocolates and other tokens of affection… all well and good after work is finished, but what about those with significant others sitting right next to them in the office? Personal relationships between employees do happen and, increasingly, employers have personal relationship policies in place to › Read More
13 January 2017 - Sheila Fahy
Normally, we like to predict the employment horizon for the coming year but after 2016, it seems foolhardy to do so. That said, our theme for 2017 is metamorphosis, although nobody knows what the transformation will look like. › Read More
Guerrilla Girls and Fisticuffs
25 October 2016 - Sheila Fahy
What is the world coming to? Guerrilla Girls, Feminist Fight Clubs and full-on initiatives to catapult women into the limelight and along the pipeline to serious senior positions. Whatever next? Wandering around the Tate Modern last week, I smiled wryly when I came across the posters by the Guerrilla Girls – a group of American › Read More
2016 – an exceptional year for women
31 August 2016 - Louise Skinner
2016 is the year that keeps on giving. For decades it has seemed acceptable for women to be absent from the boardroom and from within the ranks of senior management; and the gender pay gap was merely one of the vicissitudes of life. But now it seems that not a week goes by without new › Read More
Vexatious litigants and discrimination law
22 August 2016 - vexatious litigants Karen Seward
Job applicants and discrimination One of the unique aspects of EU discrimination law is that its protection extends to job applicants even before they have set foot in the workplace. Not all job applicants know this, or indeed that they have the right to see their recruitment notes under data protection law. › Read More