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HOME CARE WORKERS HIT BY SUPREME COURT
ANNETTE BERNHARDT, NATION - The Supreme Court handed down an astonishing
decision June 11, ruling that under federal law, home-care workers are
not entitled to overtime pay or the minimum wage. Upholding outdated
distinctions between those who labor inside and outside the home, the
Court excluded more than one million workers from the right to earn a
fair wage. . .
Some workers-like home health aides, domestic workers and agricultural
workers-have for many years been excluded from one or more laws
governing the workplace. Other workers are covered by those laws, but
weak enforcement has left them unprotected. And growing numbers are
falling through the cracks altogether, as employers push them outside
the reach of legal protection by misclassifying them as independent
contractors.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/11/2448/
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GREAT MOMENTS IN BRITISH LABOR DISPUTES
TIMES UK - Last week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal celebrated its 30th
anniversary. We marked the occasion by trawling the archives and dusting
off some of the more colorful UK employment disputes from the past few
years.
- Tony Price, the managing director of WStore UK, an IT company based in
Surrey, demanded that his 80 staff submit to a DNA test after a piece of
chewing gum got stuck to a directors' suit trousers. When his global
e-mail pointing out the firm's chewing gum ban leaked to the media,
Price cheekily suggested he would force staff to take lie detector tests
to flush out the culprit. . .
- The cliche of men in the armed serves cheering themselves up with
top-shelf literature is well established, but it was too much for the
Reverend Mark Sharpe, 37. The trainee chaplain left the Royal Navy
declaring himself "horrified" by the amount of pornography below decks
and issued a claim for sexual harassment and discrimination on the
ground of his religious beliefs. At a tribunal in Exeter, the Navy
admitted sexual harassment but denied the religious discrimination
charge. Reverend Sharpe accepted an undisclosed sum in damages and is
now a rural rector.
- Sally Bing, a 31-year-old town clerk, won her claim for sexual
discrimination and victimisation against the mayor of Chard, Tony Prior,
after the 67-year-old putative lothario became infatuated with her. "We
were standing shoulder to shoulder looking at a wall map of Chard," the
mayor explained. "When she stood close to me, it sent a sexual thrill
through me. That was possibly when I wondered whether she had sexual
feelings towards me." The married Prior invited Bing on a walking tour
of Andorra, and his advances eventually became so bad she rearranged the
furniture in her office to create an escape route in case he appeared. .
.
- Wayne Simpson, an EDF Energy salesman, lost his L28,000-a-year job
after he sent a customer a picture of himself sitting naked drinking
whisky in a bubble bath. Simpson had met the female customer while
selling door-to-door on Tyneside; he obtained her number and later sent
the picture with a message saying, "Fancy going out for a drink
sometime?" The woman didn't and instead reported him to the company and
the police. Simpson accused EDF of lacking a sense of humor. "I wasn't
even showing off my naughty bits," he said.
- Sue Storer, a 48-year-old teacher at Bedminster Down Secondary School
in Bristol, sought damages of L1 million for sex discrimination and
constructive dismissal claiming she had been forced to sit in a chair
that made embarrassing sounds every time she moved. . . Requests for a
new chair had been repeatedly ignored while male colleagues were given
sleek, executive-style chairs, she said. Her claim was thrown out.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2047646.ece
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HOME CARE WORKERS HIT BY SUPREME COURT
ANNETTE BERNHARDT, NATION - The Supreme Court handed down an astonishing
decision June 11, ruling that under federal law, home-care workers are
not entitled to overtime pay or the minimum wage. Upholding outdated
distinctions between those who labor inside and outside the home, the
Court excluded more than one million workers from the right to earn a
fair wage. . .
Some workers-like home health aides, domestic workers and agricultural
workers-have for many years been excluded from one or more laws
governing the workplace. Other workers are covered by those laws, but
weak enforcement has left them unprotected. And growing numbers are
falling through the cracks altogether, as employers push them outside
the reach of legal protection by misclassifying them as independent
contractors.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/11/2448/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GREAT MOMENTS IN BRITISH LABOR DISPUTES
TIMES UK - Last week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal celebrated its 30th
anniversary. We marked the occasion by trawling the archives and dusting
off some of the more colorful UK employment disputes from the past few
years.
- Tony Price, the managing director of WStore UK, an IT company based in
Surrey, demanded that his 80 staff submit to a DNA test after a piece of
chewing gum got stuck to a directors' suit trousers. When his global
e-mail pointing out the firm's chewing gum ban leaked to the media,
Price cheekily suggested he would force staff to take lie detector tests
to flush out the culprit. . .
- The cliche of men in the armed serves cheering themselves up with
top-shelf literature is well established, but it was too much for the
Reverend Mark Sharpe, 37. The trainee chaplain left the Royal Navy
declaring himself "horrified" by the amount of pornography below decks
and issued a claim for sexual harassment and discrimination on the
ground of his religious beliefs. At a tribunal in Exeter, the Navy
admitted sexual harassment but denied the religious discrimination
charge. Reverend Sharpe accepted an undisclosed sum in damages and is
now a rural rector.
- Sally Bing, a 31-year-old town clerk, won her claim for sexual
discrimination and victimisation against the mayor of Chard, Tony Prior,
after the 67-year-old putative lothario became infatuated with her. "We
were standing shoulder to shoulder looking at a wall map of Chard," the
mayor explained. "When she stood close to me, it sent a sexual thrill
through me. That was possibly when I wondered whether she had sexual
feelings towards me." The married Prior invited Bing on a walking tour
of Andorra, and his advances eventually became so bad she rearranged the
furniture in her office to create an escape route in case he appeared. .
.
- Wayne Simpson, an EDF Energy salesman, lost his L28,000-a-year job
after he sent a customer a picture of himself sitting naked drinking
whisky in a bubble bath. Simpson had met the female customer while
selling door-to-door on Tyneside; he obtained her number and later sent
the picture with a message saying, "Fancy going out for a drink
sometime?" The woman didn't and instead reported him to the company and
the police. Simpson accused EDF of lacking a sense of humor. "I wasn't
even showing off my naughty bits," he said.
- Sue Storer, a 48-year-old teacher at Bedminster Down Secondary School
in Bristol, sought damages of L1 million for sex discrimination and
constructive dismissal claiming she had been forced to sit in a chair
that made embarrassing sounds every time she moved. . . Requests for a
new chair had been repeatedly ignored while male colleagues were given
sleek, executive-style chairs, she said. Her claim was thrown out.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2047646.ece
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