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Key Labour Cases in UK

Redundancy selection 

Rolls-Royce v Unite
(unreported, EWHC 2420 (QB) 17 October 2008, HC)

Rolls Royce alleged that the redundancy selection matrix they had agreed with the trade union Unite could not proceed as it amounted to age discrimination. The redundancy selection process used a points system based on five criteria: achievement of objectives, self-motivation, expertise and knowledge, versatility and application of knowledge, and wider personal contribution to the team. In addition, each employee could receive one extra point for each year of continuous service. Those with the least points were selected for redundancy.

Unite argued that:

  • even if the continuous service points were indirect age discrimination, they could still be objectively justified, and
  • the continuous service points fell within the exception available under the age discrimination regulations, allowing length of service criteria of more than five years which fulfil a business need.

The High Court agreed with the union that the continuous service points were objectively justified. Given the use of these points with the other criteria within the matrix, the length of service points were capable of being justified under Regulation 3 as they did achieve a legitimate aim. The scheme agreed with the union had the legitimate aim of peaceful redundancy selection, and the aim of respecting the loyalty and experience of the older employees and protecting older employees who find it harder to get jobs from becoming unemployed. In addition the age award fell squarely within the length of service exception.

Implications for employers

  • Employers should have in place a carefully planned redundancy procedure which can be used if the need to make redundancies arises.
  • One of the best methods to adopt for selecting employees remains the redundancy score sheet or selection matrix approach.
  • Selection criteria used in any redundancy procedure must be objective and verifiable against, for example, attendance and personnel records. Selection criteria must be applied fairly and not be discriminatory.
  • It remains safer for employers to avoid length of service criteria as part of a redundancy selection process.
  • However, if employers do use length of service criteria as part of a redundancy selection process, they may be able to defend their use of this criterion if they can show it fulfils a business need or achieves a legitimate aim of the business.
  • The old method of 'last in, first out' (LIFO) used as a sole method is likely to still be age discriminatory. However, as part of a matrix, length of service may be a valid and fair indicator of loyalty and experience.
  • Careful employers may therefore use a redundancy scheme which includes length of service in conjunction with other criteria, although they may still have to justify this approach.
  • Employers who wish to use age discrimination as a reason for changing an existing redundancy scheme may find this a less compelling reason following this decision.

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Scientists extract images directly from brain

Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. Further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

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Memories may be stored on your DNA

Remember your first kiss? Experiments in mice suggest that patterns of chemical “caps” on our DNA may be responsible for preserving such memories.To remember a particular event, a specific sequence of neurons must fire at just the right time. For this to happen, neurons must be connected in a certain way by chemical junctions called synapses.

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Radical Evolution: The Future of Human-Machine Intelligence

Ray Kurzweil sees a radical evolution of the human species in the next 40 years. The merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in gene research and nanotechnology, will result in a world with no distinction between the biological and the mechanical or physical and virtual reality.

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Proof’ David slew Goliath found as Israeli archaeologists unearth ‘oldest ever Hebrew text’

By Matthew Kalman

Astounding new evidence has been unearthed in Israel that could confirm the biblical story of King David.

Until now, almost nothing has been found  that would prove the biblical account of a shepherd boy from the 10th century BC who slew the giant Goliath and went on to become the King of Israel who founded Jerusalem.

But today Hebrew University archaeology professor Yosef Garfinkel announced the discovery of a tiny, but potentially invaluable, piece of pottery at the site of the ruins of an ancient fortified city south-west of Jerusalem dated to the time of King David.

Enlarge   Proof: Yossi Garfinkel displays the ceramic shard bearing a Hebrew inscription that may be evidence King David slew Goliath

Yossi Garfinkel displays the ceramic shard bearing a Hebrew inscription that may be evidence supporting the biblical story of David and Goliath

Garfinkel said that it carried the earliest-known Hebrew inscription, some 850 years  earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Scholars are still trying to decipher the full text of the inscription, but Garfinkel said they are excited at the prospect of a link to David because they have already translated the words for "king," "judge," and  "slave" , which he said suggested it was some sort of official note from the time of his reign.

Until now, scholars have been unable to say whether King David was indeed the  heroic, psalm-composing monarch depicted in the Bible or the local and unimportant leader of a small tribe.

Enlarge   The archaeological site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa, seen in an undated aerial photograph, where the shard was found

The archaeological site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa, seen in an undated aerial photograph, where the shard was found

Only one biblical-era inscription with the words "House of David" has ever been  discovered, leading some scholars to question whether King David existed at all.

The pottery fragment was inscribed with five rows of text in black ink divided by black lines written in an early Hebrew-Canaanite script.

 

More…

Archaeologists also found lamps, pottery jars and other items. Carbon-14 tests  carried out at Oxford University dated them to the 10th century BC, the era according to the Old Testament of King David and his son Solomon, who built the Temple in Jerusalem.

The ruins of the Elah Valley fortress was discovered  in 2003 near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean Hills, south-west of  Jerusalem. The huge complex is spread over nearly six acres and surrounded by a 700-metre long city wall built with stones weighing up to eight tons each. 

Bible come true? David with the head of Goliath by William Daniels

Bible come true? David with the head of Goliath by William Daniels

Enlarge   Yossi Garfinkel is seen at the excavation site

Yossi Garfinkel is seen at the excavation site

Detailed excavations began only earlier this year.

The fortress would have controlled the ancient trading route from Jerusalem to the coast and overlooks the plain where David engaged in his legendary mortal combat with Goliath, giant champion of the rival Philistines.

Goliath's home town of Gath was unearthed just a few miles away to the south.

"The chronology and geography of Elah Fortress create a unique meeting point between the history, historiography and origins of the early Davidic Kingdom," said Garfinkel.

"This is the oldest Judean city  uncovered to date, and its very construction has unprecedented implications on our understanding of this era." 

Garfinkel said the sophistication and size of the city suggested it was part of  a strong, centrally-planned kingdom.

It has been a busy week for archaeologists searching for King David and his family. In Jerusalem, a researcher said she had found an ancient water drain mentioned in the Bible as the route used by David's forces to capture the city  from the Jebusites.

In Jordan, scholars said they had uncovered an ancient  copper excavation site that tests showed could be the legendary King Solomon's Mines.

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What happened at Lambeth 2008

THE 2008 LAMBETH CONFERENCE of Anglican bishops in Canterbury July 16-August 3 was a milestone in this march of relativism. While nothing extraordinary happened – no fist fights or beatific visions – a number of prelates came away from Lambeth realizing the Anglican Communion no longer worked. Its structures were not a place for holy men, but for hollow men: bishops who knew in their hollow hearts they were stuffed with straw, trapped in a purposeless whirl of apathy and spiritual torpor called "dialogue." The Anglican Communion had finally broken, coming to an end "not with a bang but a whimper."

While past Lambeth Conferences have endeavored to speak clearly on matters of common concern as a guide to the global church, Lambeth 2008 was designed to, and did, decline to draw the line between the irreconcilable claims of the left and right. Gene Robinson's cry that "God is doing a new thing," and that the affirmation of his election as Bishop of New Hampshire showed that "God has once again brought an Easter out of Good Friday," was left to stand alongside the claims of traditionalists like Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who argued that the standard the church must use in moving forward with change was the rule of Vincent of Lerins: a once-for-all received faith, witnessed everywhere and by all. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.

While the liberal juggernaut has ground through The Episcopal Church (TEC) over the past generation, carrying prayer book revision and women's ordination with it across the 38-province Anglican Communion, Vincent's 5th century rule had been consistently applied to questions of sexual ethics. At the 13th Lambeth Conference in 1998, bishops of the Communion affirmed by a 7 to 1 margin the church's traditional teaching on human sexuality, as informed by Scripture and the church's unbroken teaching of 2,000 years.

The onus lies with those who seek change to convince the church of the need for it, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, explained after Lambeth '98. Listening to proponents of change acknowledges their honorable motives, he told the clergy of the Diocese of Central Florida in 2003, but entering into a conversation with them does not validate their arguments.

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent," George Orwell once wrote of Gandhi, and the same standard applies in the development of doctrine, Lord Carey argued. However, the 14th Lambeth Conference under the presidency of Archbishop Rowan Williams said goodbye to all that.

AT LAMBETH '08, Dr. Williams lost the confidence of his fellow archbishops, and left the Communion millions in debt, and on the same trajectory as before the Conference began. Left and right have rejected his pleas for restraint, vitiating the renewed call in Canterbury for moratoria on gay bishops and blessings and cross-border episcopal actions, pending putative rescue by an Anglican Covenant at some uncertain date. New layers of bureaucracy suggested at Lambeth (e.g. a "Pastoral Forum" and "Faith and Order Commission") remain to be developed at a time when many saw stronger measures to restore order as overdue. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic and Orthodox representatives announced the effective end of talks aimed at corporate reunion and the recognition of Anglican orders.

Philosophically, the Lambeth Conference witnessed the retirement of the historic Anglican guides of Scripture, Tradition and reason in divining truth. Scripture was subordinated to experience and culture, reason rejected in favor of political power, and Tradition debased into equal parts antiquarianism and haberdashery.

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