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Employment Law
This completely revised website is designed for officials supporting members who have requested assistance with Employment Tribunal claims. Where members request such assistance from reps handling internal disciplinary cases, they should liaise with their branch secretary about how best to process the request and documentation to headquarters in accordance with NEC-approved procedures.
The Employment Law pages seek to offer up-to-date guidance and useful links on the law in the workplace.
With introductions to:
- Unfair Dismissal
- Discrimination and Harassment
- Contracts of Employment
and overviews to assisting a member through:
- Employment tribunals
- Useful guides to previous cases in: At the tribunals 2003 – 2005
and Links to relevant sites.
The Employment Law Department has been a separate unit at headquarters for some years now. It provides an ‘in-house’ legal service to assist reps and officials at all levels, with advice and assistance to cater for the growth of law at the workplace and of so many new individual worker rights.
Most of our tribunal cases are now handled by an experienced panel of Employment Tribunal union representatives who have been selected for their interest, ability and knowledge of tribunal matters. Many are former NEC members or Regional officials as well as senior branch officers. They are trained and guided by the Department as specialist advocates at tribunals to a high standard. [See Annual Report 2004 for the names and backgrounds of our current ET Panel representatives]
This ET panel does not, of course, remove the need to engage professional lawyers, especially in the more legally complex or lengthy case hearings. But building from the secure foundation of the panel, we have also helped develop the specialist Employment Law arm of one of our leading firms of solicitors, Simpson Millar (in association with A J Hows), to provide that expert back-up essential to take on the toughest cases. We introduced A J Hows & Co to Simpson Millar in 2003, as this firm specialised in employment law and CWU cases. This merger has worked very well, and being situated just across the road from union headquarters on Wimbledon Broadway, their services have been of great value to our Department and the union generally.
They have four partners working closely with the Department and senior union officers as required – Tony Hows, a union-associated solicitor of many years standing. He has advised the most senior union figures of the trade union movement for more than 20years in a range of key union and collective rights higher court cases; Joy Drummond, who has extensive experience in employment litigation and special expertise on complex pension and equal pay cases for many unions (she was a leading lawyer in the landmark Preston pension cases for UNIFI (now AMICUS); Jacqui Dunne, who has recently won large claims for a number of ill-health-related breach of contract cases for external engineers dismissed on ‘efficiency’ grounds by BT; and David Brown, a recently qualified solicitor who is gaining considerable experience with our cases.
In Scotland, we also use Lawford Kidd in Edinburgh and J G O’Hare in Northern Ireland, both of whom are extremely experienced union-friendly firms.
Please note: (i) only CWU members are entitled to assistance from this service
(ii) all requests for representation must be routed through a member’s branch
Correct as at August '07
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