Despite having been on sick leave for six months at the moment of dismissal, the Labour Court of Brussels considered that a claimant did not establish a prima facie case of discrimination which would allow the burden of proof to be reversed.

An employment tribunal (ET) decision has considered whether it could be an act of indirect disability discrimination to require a disabled employee to wear a face mask at work.

An Irish Workplace Relations Commission (‘WRC’) adjudication has found that the complainant, who was an atheist, was discriminated against on grounds of religion. The respondent government department was ordered to review the process of appointing military chaplains to ensure compliance with the Irish Employment Equality Act 1998 (‘EEA’). The scope of this adjudication relates to the ability to apply for a role and whether this constituted discrimination on grounds of religion. The complainant asserted that he was discriminated against by the Department of Defence (the respondent) in the appointment of a military chaplain at Aiken Barracks and Gormanston Army Camp on 6 November 2020 as he was an atheist. The respondent denied the claim, relying on Section 37(2) of the EEA and the occupational requirements relating to chaplaincy to the Defence Forces, in particular the role of the chaplain in conflict zones, notably Lebanon. The respondent alleged that chaplains build contacts with local religious leaders and a Christian chaplain would be more accepted by certain communities in Lebanon than a humanist chaplain would be, and thus amounted to a ‘genuine occupational requirement’ within the meaning of Section 37(2) of the EEA.

A decision of the Sheriff’s Court in Dunfermline, Scotland has applied a wide interpretation of the legal proceedings exemption to data protection obligations in the context of use of a non-party’s personal data in the Employment Tribunal (ET).

The Danish Maritime and Commercial Court has ruled that a worker was covered by the Temporary Agency Workers Act even though they were assigned to the same workplace for three years and eight months.

The Italian Supreme Court has held in three different decisions of 2022 that, even if not provided for by Italian legislation, temporariness is a mandatory requirement for the lawfulness of agency work in accordance with Directive 2008/104/EC. Italian courts must therefore define, on a case-by-case basis, if the reiteration of agency work assignments at the same user undertaking can be considered in violation of the Italian legislation and the EU rules.

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia has issued a judgment concerning the contractual relationship between a worker who had an employment relationship with a de facto employment agency (the ‘agency’) but was continuously working for a port operating company. Given that the ‘agency’ was not registered for the activity of providing labour to a user company and that the agency work was not temporary, the Court found such behaviour constituted a breach of the fundamental requirements arising out of Directive 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work.

On 24 March 2023, the Dutch Supreme Court finally ruled on the employment status of Deliveroo riders in the Netherlands. The Supreme Court has followed the earlier ruling of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal and ruled that Deliveroo riders qualify as employees (instead of self-employed workers). Even though the Advocate General of the Supreme Court advised the Court to develop new criteria for determining whether a worker qualifies as an employee or not, the Supreme Court applied roughly the same criteria as it had done in the past. The Supreme Court considered that developing new general rules for determining whether a worker is self-employed or employed is up to the national and European legislators.

Annual leave cannot lapse if the worker could not take the leave due to sickness, before he was exempted from work, even where it is not a long-term absence.

Amending the pension scheme of a previously advantaged category of workers: no retroactive effect allowed, unless an overiding reason in the public interest exists.

The Working Time Directive also applies to public sector workers, such as firefighters, in so far as those workers carry out their activities under normal circumstances. Public sector workers may be subject to less favourable rules on night work than private sector workers, provided that the difference in treatment is based on an objective and reasonable criterion, i.e. relates to a permitted aim and is proportionate to that aim.

A road transport undertaking cannot discharge its responsibility to comply with driving times and rest periods to another person, without national laws being able to hold that person’s behaviour against the applicable requirements for those undertakings.

A Member State may not exclude professional experience gained in other Member States from consideration in admitting candidates to a candidate list for the recruitment of staff in national public higher-education institutions, as this puts both foreign applicants as domestic applicants with foreign experience at a disadvantage.

British citizens have lost their rights as EU citizens as a result of Brexit.

Compensation granted during Covid-19 isolation does not qualify as ‘sickness benefit’ within the meaning of Regulation 883/2004. However granting such compensation only to domestic quarantined workers is indirectly discriminatory (and illegitimate), as cross-border workers are denied such compensation.

The Temporary Agency Work Directive does not apply to an employee who has used its right of refusal to transfer to another group entity and is consequently permanently assigned from the transferor to the transferee.

While every person has the right to know the date of and reasons for the consultation of his/her personal data, such information does, in principe, not include names of the employees who consulted this information.

Directive 2002/14 also applies to private companies exercising public powers, if they also compete with other market operators. The information and consultation obligation does not apply to changes in post of a small number of interim managers.

Questions regarding COVID 19-vaccination requirement in order to be granted access to the workplace found inadmissible.

The requirement to notify a public authority about upcoming collective redundancies is not intended to grant individual protection on the workers affected.