Companies will have to look carefully at their employment and recruitment policies should an opinion of the EU issued yesterday be adopted by the full European Court. Sharon Coleman, a legal secretary, is suing her former employers, claiming that they failed to allow her time off to care for her severely disabled son. The opinion, handed down by an adviser to the European Court of Justice, holds that existing anti-discrimination laws which apply to the disabled also cover carers.
In other words, millions of workers who are forced to juggle fulltime care with their job would be able to demand more flexible working hours. About one in eight adults in the UK are carers.
About Giles
Giles is the founder and managing director of ContractStore. It was his idea to set up a company selling documents online and he has played a major part in the company's development.
He is an English solicitor, with over thirty years' experience of drafting and negotiating commercial and construction contracts in the UK and overseas. He has long been convinced that there is a quicker and simpler approach to the delivery and supply of most contracts, and he is an active proponent of the use of plain English in legal documents. He specialises in the drafting of construction and engineering contracts and as well as contributing contracts to the ContractStore website, he is co-author of the JCT Constructing Excellence Contract publiushed in 2007 (and its predecessor, the Be Collaborative Contract, which is available online from ContractStore).
