Seventeen years after losing her council job due to needing endometriosis surgery, Michelle Dewar’s campaign for paid menstrual leave gained 50,000 signatures in a week, reports ELIZABETH SHORT

THE piece in the Star on Saturday by my colleague Professor Keith Ewing outlined some of the shortcomings of the law and its failures to protect the 800 P&O staff dismissed in favour of cheaper crew.
It appears that an offer said to exceed the value of statutory claims has been made to the workforce with a limited time to accept.
If the deals are accepted, we may never know what arguments P&O might have raised to defend claims of discrimination on grounds of nationality if it is true that P&O has selected for dismissal only those seafarers who are resident in the UK on UK contracts with the company, the overwhelming majority of whom are likely to be UK nationals.



