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Working outside the UK
[ch 2: pages 69-70]With closer ties developing between European states, more workers find themselves working outside the UK. Under the European Posting of Workers Directive 1996, all workers temporarily working in an EU state have the right to the same statutory minimum terms and conditions as those permanently working in that state.
Employment disputes are brought in the courts of the place where the employee habitually carries out their work, under the Brussels Convention. In Weber v Universal Ogden Services [2002] IRLR 365, the ECJ held that this is the state where the employee has worked the longest, except where the employee had worked in a number of states but had recently settled in one.
Employees working outside Great Britain can bring claims of unfair dismissal in the UK as long as their connection to Great Britain is “sufficiently strong”:
Lawson worked as a security supervisor at an RAF base on Ascension Island, Botham was a youth worker at Ministry of Defence bases in Germany, and Crofts was an aircrew member for a Hong Kong airline based at Heathrow.
The Lords held that Lawson and Botham were “expatriate” employees whose work abroad had strong connections with Great Britain, and Crofts was a “peripatetic” employee whose work constantly took him to different places, but whose tour of duty always began and ended in London. All three could bring their claims in the UK.
Serco Ltd v Lawson; Botham v MoD; Crofts & others v Veta Ltd & others [2006] UKHL 3
Although the Equality Act 2010 is silent as to territorial scope, in Clyde & Co LLP v Bates [2012] EWCA Civ 1207, the Court of Appeal ruled that the same “sufficiently strong connection” test, also applies to discrimination cases.