Carer wins landmark employment case

Carer wins landmark employment case

A mother allegedly forced out of her job because of time spent looking after her disabled son has won a landmark legal case which promises to give new rights to Britain’s millions of unpaid carers.

European judges in Luxembourg agreed unanimously that Sharon Coleman has the right to claim “discrimination by association” if she was harassed and branded lazy for wanting flexibility to look after the child.

The ruling establishes for the first time that Europe’s ban on employment discrimination is not limited to disabled people but extends to those responsible for them or with close connections.
Read more on this story in The Guardian

Unions hit Brown with 130 demands

The full scale of the trade unions’ call for a change of political course by the Brown government can be disclosed today, as general secretaries meet senior ministers and Downing Street officials to discuss 130 demands they have tabled.

The complete list, obtained by the Guardian, includes a right to take supportive strike action, scrapping NHS prescription charges, bringing all hospital cleaning back in-house, and a new agreement on public sector pay with the Treasury.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Gordon Brown approves benefits halt unless unemployed seek work

Radical changes to the welfare state, requiring claimants to look for work in order to continue receiving benefit, will be announced by the government on Monday.

James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, has been given the go-ahead by Gordon Brown to implement all the main proposals of the Freud report, which was originally commissioned by Tony Blair and which will be seen as heralding a significant privatisation of the welfare system.

Read more on this story in The Times

More young people are saying no to drugs

Drug taking, smoking and drinking are falling among young people, a national survey shows.

Twenty-five per cent of the 8,000 youngsters aged 11 to 15 questioned by the NHS Information Centre last year had tried drugs, compared with 29% in 2001.

Read more on this story in The Times

Children need more protection from paedophiles

Police, governments and industry giants have yet to work out how to target predators in the virtual world, said Jim Gamble, the head of the UK unit dedicated to tackling online paedophiles.

His comments came at the start of a conference in London, where more than 150 teenagers from 19 different countries will meet to give their opinions on the future of internet safety.

Gamble is chief executive of Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), an alliance of British and foreign police forces, computer experts, charities and schools.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

 

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