Unite the union issued ballot papers for potential industrial action to its 12,000-strong cabin crew membership within British Airways this week.

The ballot papers were sent on the same day BA began to impose far-reaching changes to cabin crew working practices, changes which Unite believes are not only unworkable but also contractual - and so must be negotiated, not imposed.

A judge in Hong Kong has awarded 18 former Cathay Pacific pilots $7.6m in damages for unfair dismissal - eight years after they were dismissed.

The BBC reports the pilots were sacked after they started a 'work-to-rule campaign' during a labour dispute.  They belonged to a group of 49 pilots, known as the 49ers, all of whom were fired.  (NB. The other 31 pilots also sued, but settled with the company.)

The labour dispute centred on the pilots' claims that they were often made to fly longer than agreed hours, with insufficient break time between flights.

At the time they were dismissed, Cathay said it was because of "frequent sick days" and "a negative attitude towards management."

But Judge Ansemolo Reyes said that "the predominant reason for the plaintiffs' termination by Cathay was their perceived participation in union activities."  The judge added: "By dismissing them, Cathay hoped to send a strong signal to other union members to comply with management's line or else face a similar fate as the 49ers."

He also ruled that the pilots were defamed by the company's statements.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act, it is unlawful for employers to discriminate against disabled people for a reason related to their disability. 

Recently in the case of Coleman v. Attridge Law, the Employment Appeals Tribunal ('EAT') held the Act also protects people who, although not themselves disabled, suffer discrimination or harassment owing to their association with a disabled person - so-called 'associative discrimination.'

Jordan Wimmer, 29, of Chelsea, west London, says her boss Mark Lowe, founder and owner of Nomos Capital, branded her a "bimbo" and "stupid blonde," and forced her to quit her £500,000-a-year job as a marketing executive.  The Canadian is now suing Lowe for £4 million, claiming sex discrimination, unlawful deduction of wages, unfair constructive dismissal, and disability discrimination.

Wimmer claims was forced to watch father-of-two Lowe have a lap dance at a burlesque club in Paris "under great duress."  She also alleges he invited a young Thai escort to business meetings: "In spite of everyone else wearing formal business attire, [the escort] wore hot pants which barely covered her buttocks, stilettos, and no stockings."

In August, the High Court dismissed Gary McKinnon's application for judicial review of a House of Lords decision to extradite him to the United States.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, an American court has indicted Mr. McKinnnon for hacking into 97 US military and NASA computer systems.  Federal prosecutors allege he copied then deleted critical operating system files and other data, which caused over $700,000 in damage to government security networks. 

Mr. McKinnon has admitted he hacked into the networks, but this has not stopped the media and several high profiles celebrities taking his side in fighting extradition.  He has been cast an "UFO eccentric," who hacked into the computer systems because he believes the US Government "suppressed antigravity, UFO-related technologies... free energy or what they call zero-point energy." 

Of course, great news that Trafigura gave up on the injunction against the Guardian but was it really such a great victory for free speech?

The fact that the injunction was issued at all is frankly absurd... and very worrying.  Parliament spent most of yesterday debating the issue and was united in its condemnation of the order.  But the judge who issued it is very unlikely to disclose why he did so.

Sadly, the injunction was not atypical.  In recent years, the judiciary appears to have abandoned the old principle of "publish and be damned," which allows the media to publish a story and bear the risk of having to pay damages if they get it wrong, in favour of the immeasurably more illiberal policy of issuing prior restraint injunctions, which force the media not to run a story at all.

Free speech scored a rare victory yesterday as an injunction won by solicitors Peter Carter-Ruck on behalf of clients Trafigura was rendered meaningless by a tsunami of negative publicity on Twitter.

As reported here early yesterday, Trafigura won an injunction on Monday to stop the Guardian reporting a parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farrelly for Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

The question concerns allegations of illegal toxic waste dumping by Trafigura and tax avoidance by Barclays Bank.

While the Guardian was prevented from reporting the question, bloggers and twitterers were not.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act ('DDA'), it is unlawful for employers to discriminate against disabled people for a reason related to their disability.

Employers must also make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage by employment arrangements.

The law applies to all areas of employment, including: recruitment; employment terms and conditions; pay; work-related benefits (e.g., access to recreation or refreshment facilities); work status; training; promotion and transfer opportunities; redundancy; and dismissal.

Disability Dismissal

This summer, the Employment Appeals Tribunal ('EAT') considered the case of lecturer Susan Walters who was dismissed by Fareham College for long-term sickness absence.

Ms. Walters went on sick leave beginning in February 2006.  She gave a number of reasons for her absence, including stress-related illness, sinusitis, investigation for liver masses, HT and "gynae problems."

The Guardian reported late last night that it had been "prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds." 

Almost immediately twitterers started linking to the article and over a hundred people posted tweets to #trafigura and #carterruck. 

Around midnight, The Spectator disclosed the Guardian gag relates to a question from Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme:

[W]hat assessment ... has [been] made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura[?]

So how did The Spectator (among others) work out what the gag relates to?

The Baby P judicial review hearing launched by Sharon Shoesmith is scheduled to end today.

Haringey Council sacked Shoesmith as director of children's services in December 2008, shortly after Ed Balls - Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families - ordered her suspension following the release of an Ofsted report into the Baby P case.

Announcing Shoesmith's suspension, Balls said:

"I have powers to intervene and remove someone who is not fit for office ... Most people would look at this report - look at the clear evidence of management failures - and say that this kind of failure should not be rewarded." 

The Ofsted report was, he said, "devastating and damning."

In March, however, Shoesmith applied for judicial review against Haringey Council, Balls, and Ofsted.  She also launched an employment tribunal claim for unfair dismissal.

Heather Brown, an Ofsted inspector, has described Haringey's children's services department as the "worst ever seen." 

But Shoesmith claims the Government turned her into a scapegoat; that she's a victim of a "flagrant breach of the rules of natural justice."

She accuses Balls of suspending her without a fair hearing.  She also complains he didn't give her a chance to see the Ofsted report or respond to "a number of highly prejudicial comments made by Ofsted inspectors" before dismissing her.

Last year, the people of Ecuador voted in favour of a new constitution to grant legal rights to tropical forests, islands, rivers and air.  Its Bill of Rights for Nature states: 

"Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador.  Those rights shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those rights."

Currently, under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, employers can require all staff to retire at 65 - the default retirement age ('DRA') - regardless of their circumstances and even if they don't want to retire, so long as they follow the correct procedure.

1.4 million people choose to work beyond 65, however, and many more would like to carry on working, but are prevented from doing so by their employers.

Heyday challenge

In 2006, the National Council on Aging began a legal challenge against the DRA, arguing it contravenes European law.  This case became known as the Heyday challenge.  Last week, this challenge came to an end in the High Court, which ruled the DRA of 65 is lawful.

A year ago, the Independent ran a story - Invasion of the libel tourists - about U.S. celebrities being encouraged by British media lawyers to take advantage of the U.K.'s tougher libel laws.

Libel tourists apparently flock to the Sceptred Isle every year to take advantage of our friendly courts and quaint old ways, making London the undisputed 'libel capital of the world.'

The trend started in 2000, when Russian oligarch-turned-émigré Boris Berezovsky sued U.S. business magazine Forbes.  The case went all the way to the House of Lords, which ruled that - since the magazine was widely available on the internet and Berezovsky had sufficient business interests in Britain to have been damaged - the court had jurisdiction.

Since then, numerous foreign celebrities have sued overseas media companies for libel in U.K. courts - including Polish film director Roman Polanski, actress Kate Hudson, and singer Jennifer Lopez.

Criticism of English libel law

Last year, the New York State legislature passed the Libel Terrorism Prevention Act to protect writers from foreign judgments in countries that do not meet the free-speech standards of the United States.

And the United Nations Committee on Human Rights has denounced English defamation law for "discouraging critical media reports on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, and encouraging libel tourism."

Trafigura, the London-based oil-trading company accused of dumping toxic waste in poverty-stricken Ivory Coast, says it has agreed a £28 million settlement with lawyers representing 31,000 people affected by the incident. 

Each victim will receive approximately £950 in compensation.

The settlement dwarfs the £122 million Trafigura paid the government of the Ivory Coast in 2007 to exempt it from legal proceedings there.

A report by an investigator for the United Nations Human Rights Council states that "15 people died[ and] 69 people were hospitalized" after a ship chartered by Trafigura - the Panamanian-registered vessel Probo Koala - dumped 500 tonnes of toxic waste belonging to the company at sites around Abidjan, Ivory Coast's largest city. 

Within hours of the dumping, "thousands of individuals visited health-care centres complaining of nausea, headaches, vomiting, abdominal pains, skin reactions and a range of eye, ear, nose, throat, pulmonary and gastric problems;" "more than 108,000 medical consultations result[ed] from the incident."  Moreover, the areas where the toxic waste was dumped still have not been decontaminated and continue to threaten residents' health.