Darren Clayton

  • Darren Clayton
    Feature

    Dress code dilemmas

    17 October 2016

    Employers need to consider potential discrimination issues when implementing a dress code.

  • Tribunal
    Feature

    Defining holiday pay

    24 November 2014

    Clearing up the high-profile EAT judgment on overtime pay – and where Nigel Farage fits into it all.

  • Ed Miliband
    Feature

    Working ‘when required’

    12 May 2014

    Zero-hours contracts are being demonised but the debate is a complex one.

  • Darren Clayton
    Feature

    Employment: saying goodbye to statutes

    18 November 2013

    There is likely to be a cull of statutes as the government looks to reduce the burden on employers via its ‘red tape challenge’.

  • Feature

    Employment tribunals

    24 June 2013

    Oddly, I am both young enough and old enough to remember the ‘@’symbol on a typewriter being redundant. The days of calculating ‘8 apples @2d each’ were long past, and yet we remained in an age when the headmaster of my school banned me from taking typing lessons on the ...

  • News

    Real employee rights or fantasy?

    Archive

    If you like pantomime it is always best to choose a classic. For some it is Mother Goose, for others Cinderella. For me there is only one – Jack and the Beanstalk – and it is wonderful to see that the government appears to agree. In fact, the government likes ...

  • News

    Dr, Do Little?

    2012-08-30T00:00:00

    The similarities between employment law and Doctor Dolittle are of course striking. Both are a little eccentric among their peers and have at times struggled to be recognised fully. Sometimes they are assisted by monkeys and of course neither can sing. But perhaps most notable of all may be their ...

  • News

    ET or not ET? That is the ­question

    2012-04-13T00:00:00

    When an employment lawyer dies it must be tempting for those left behind to draw upon the career of the deceased when considering an inscription for the tombstone. Some may aspire to the simple phrase: ‘He lived as he died; scandalous, vexatious and with no reasonable prospect of success.’ For ...

  • News

    Workers’ rights go in and out of fashion

    2011-10-27T00:00:00

    Many comparisons can be made between employment law and the fashion industry - even leaving aside the glamour of its practitioners. Both can be cruel mistresses, blown in the winds of opinion; each is subject to changes that can appear at best fickle (and are often imported from the continent).

  • News

    Team GB: world police?

    2011-04-28T00:00:00

    It is said that it is far better to give than to receive. That may be so, but under the Bribery Act 2010 both may be an offence, so ‘receiving’ may now have the edge.

  • News

    The issue of what constitutes a legal adviser

    2010-12-16T00:00:00

    When is a legal adviser not a legal adviser? Based on section 147 of the Equality Act 2010, it appears to be when he is a legal adviser. Confused? Many have been.

  • News

    Employment law: the Equality Act 2010 – pressing the launch button

    2010-06-03T00:00:00

    Not all good ideas make the grade. Hover cars, that dream of youth, have still to take off and the BBC has cancelled my suggested Tolkien-based detective series, Midsommer Mordor. Pity.

  • News

    Employment – is Or-well with the Equality Bill?

    2009-11-05T00:00:00

    Was it Harriet Harman who wrote that ‘all employees are equal, but some employees are more equal than others’? Whoever it was, they may well have foreseen some of the more interesting provisions of the latest version of the Equality Bill, which, we are assured, is still cranking its way ...

  • News

    Objective selection criteria for redundancy

    2009-06-25T00:00:00

    Getting older presents one with a number of oddities to deal with. Just how much chestnut rinse looks ‘natural’? (The answer, of course, is none.) Where is the door to my office? That kind of thing.

  • News

    Employment law: bonus culture and the court of public opinion

    2009-06-04T00:00:00

    During the G20 demonstrations outside the Bank of England I received several texts from assorted City types. In each I was urged to join them on the roof terrace of the Coq d'Argent restaurant, where apparently one could watch the riot below while drinking half-decent champagne and even participate at ...

  • News

    Employment law: accrual of annual leave and sickness absence

    2009-03-16T00:00:00

    For the modern solicitor it has become essential to develop the ability not only to be all things to all people, but also to be in many different places at the same time.

  • News

    ACAS: conciliation returns to the toolbox

    2008-12-04T00:00:00

    Timing is often crucial. Do you wish that you had exchanged your Icelandic individual savings account for premium bonds (now the geriatric pin-up of the savings world) earlier this year? You would be far from alone. The ability to dance on the beat can often make or break you.

  • News

    Employment: no regrets

    2008-10-02T00:00:00

    Sometimes it appears that life is all about regrets. That ill-advised ‘Law Society’ tattoo on qualification, the scurrilous suggestion that the little girl singing at the Olympic opening ceremony was miming, and indeed the rude comments many of us may have made about the likely spectacle Britain will present to ...

  • News

    Equality under the law: a fairer future?

    2008-07-24T00:00:00

    It is the lot of every solicitor that there will be a specific dinner party question that folk cannot resist asking. That question will be specific to each area of law and will usually be raised over the After Eights as if for the first time ever.