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Government Influence over Employment Practices illustrated with Emilio Botin Abbey Santander price

By Simon King

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 07Oct2009 Word count: 871 Viewed: 389 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Some of the ways in which the UK government influences employment practices are illustrated by the high-profile case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where the Employment Tribunal made the findings of unfair dismissal and unlawful racial discrimination and, following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group's refusal to comply with the Employment Tribunal's reinstatement order (to remedy the situation without compensation), ordered Emilio Botin Abbey Banco Santander share price to pay the record-breaking compensation award of £2.8 million to Mr Chagger to cover his loss. Abbey Santander price (the UK retail bank about to be re-branded as Santander shares price soon, and being part of the huge Banco Santander Central Hispano Group) dismissed Mr Chagger from employment back in 2006, claiming the dismissal was 'a fair redundancy'. Mr Chagger claimed that the real reasons behind the dismissal were unfairness and race discrimination; he was of Indian origin. Balbinder Chagger worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking as a Trading Risk Controller and earned around £100,000 per year. His manager was Nigel Hopkins.

One way the UK government influences employment practice is by legislating (creating laws). In the absence of legally enforceable employment conditions, employers would be free to exploit their employees. Over the years, the government has enacted employment legislation to ensure equally fair employment treatment for all employees by all employers, including the employee's right not to be dismissed unfairly or wrongly. Protection of the employees' interests is at the heart of employment law. There are now numerous separate pieces of legislation that make up UK Employment Law. There are specific laws against discrimination at work on the grounds of sex or marital status, race, nationality or national or ethnic origins, disability and sexual orientation. They relate to pay, recruitment and selection, the provision of opportunities for training, development and advancement through promotion, and access to the benefits of and facilities at work.

Another way the UK government influences employment practice is by publishing codes of practice. Codes of practice are not legally enforceable but the government and courts will regard them as the good practices that employers should follow. The Employment Tribunal that heard the Abbey Santander case found that Abbey Santander had failed to follow the good practices recommended by the UK statutory 'Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment' regarding 'Equal Opportunity Training'. Mr Chagger had tried to resolve the issues surrounding his termination directly with Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, through the company's grievance and appeals procedures. However, Abbey Santander had not provided any Equal Opportunity Training to any of the managers it had allocated to deal with Mr Chagger's issues; Mr Chagger's issues were simply thrown out by each and every manager. The Employment Tribunal also found that Abbey Santander had also failed to comply with good practices recommended by the code concerning monitoring; it discovered an abundance of monitoring failures committed by Abbey Santander, alongside its failures to give serious consideration to allegations of race discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

Another way the UK government influences employment practice is by maintaining an Employment Tribunal system as a final way of deciding whether or not an employer has behaved appropriately. Disputes under employment law are usually dealt with at Employment Tribunals. Employment Tribunals were established to enable easier and cheaper access to the law for individual employees than would be available through the courts. If the employer and employee cannot resolve their employment dispute by themselves, then the employee may escalate the dispute to an Employment Tribunal for an objective adjudication. Employment Tribunals will hear disputes concerning redundancy payments, unfair dismissal and discrimination. Mr Chagger escalated his issues of unfair dismissal and racial discrimination to the Employment Tribunal. The Employment Tribunal considered the evidence and found that Mr Chagger had in fact been dismissed unfairly and racially discriminated against by both Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) will consider appeals against rulings made by the Employment Tribunals. In 2008, Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins appealed against the Employment Tribunal's finding of racial discrimination. The EAT rejected the appeal and upheld the original Employment Tribunal's finding that Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins had discriminated against Mr Chagger. Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had also appealed against the record-breaking £2.8 million compensation awarded. The EAT accepted this appeal and ordered the compensation to be sent back to the original Employment Tribunal for reconsideration.

The Court of Appeal will look into appeals against rulings made by the EAT. In 2009, the case was escalated to the Court of Appeal (UK's second highest court). The case was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009, according to the Court's List of Hearings. The Court's judgement was not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers' chambers, who represented Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, had reported before the hearing had occurred that the hearing would only be about compensation and not also about the wrong of racial discrimination committed. It appears, therefore, that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins was finalised by the EAT, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT's order to remit the compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

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