We love helping golf clubs because they genuinely seem to attract more than their fair share of tricky employees.

Including those that go off sick with stress when invited for a disciplinary.

However, sometimes, rather than helping the golf club, we’re duty bound to protect the employee from the tricky committee.

Our client, let’s call them the “Good Intentions” Golf Club, employed a new greenkeeper, in his early forties.

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The Ministry of Justice has just published the provisional tribunal statistics for October to December 2017.

And they’re startling.

As you might know, tribunal fees were abolished in July last year.

Which means that it costs nothing for a disgruntled ex employee to start a claim, with or without justification.

The previous quarter showed an increase in tribunal claims of 64%.

This time, the increase is 90% over the previous year!

That’s right, NINETY PER CENT.

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I was in Cardiff at the weekend.

And – let me level with you – I was there to SHOP.

Staying in a hotel right in the middle of town has its perks, and I was able to start shopping early on the Saturday morning.

First stop was Jo Malone.

I’d been given a candle from there a few years back and really enjoyed it, but I’d never actually come across a shop where I could just “browse”

 (I know, I live a sheltered existence!)
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One of the golf clubs we look after received a grievance letter from a staff member recently.

It started off with the claim that he was being “harassed, bullied and victimised” under the Equality Act 2010 (Which is always fun!).

Wow, all of those things at the same time?!

But the most telling part of it is that he did not state WHICH protected characteristic he was being persecuted for.

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Even if an employee has voluntarily opted out of the 48-hour working week, they are still legally entitled to take the daily and weekly rest breaks that are provided for in the Working Time Regulations 1998 .

You can’t make them work “all the hours necessary” to get the job done.

As rest breaks should add up to 90 hours per week an employee’s total working hours should add up to not more than 78 hours per week on average.

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So, the most creative claim for discrimination this decade came up this week:

That forbidding staff to drink on duty is age discrimination.

Okay, I’ll bite.

Why is that discrimination exactly?
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