What did we get up to last month?
In November's e-bulletin, it was mentioned that three ex-City Link directors were standing trial for failure to notify the Secretary of State of the proposal to make more than 2,000 staff redundant. All three defendants have now been acquitted, with the Judge ruling that there was no proposal to make redundancies on the date it was alleged the directors should have notified the Secretary of State. At that stage, the directors were still hopeful that placing the company into administration would ultimately save the business and its staff and on that basis they were not convicted of any criminal wrongdoing.
There was news that the GMB union had issued proceedings against Uber on behalf of its drivers for claims including a failure to pay drivers a minimum wage or holiday pay, along with a claim that the company frequently deducts sums from drivers' pay without informing them in advance. Uber has denied the claims, arguing that its drivers are self-employed and are therefore not entitled to these workers' rights.
Any new cases to be aware of?
The European Court of Justice has held in Greenfield v The Care Bureau that where a worker's hours are increased part way through a holiday year, any annual leave that has accrued up until that point does not need to be recalculated with reference to the increased working hours. It is only those hours which have not yet accrued which must be increased.
The EAT has clarified the test concerning disparity of treatment in dismissal cases. In Jones v MBNA Ltd, Mr Jones and his colleague, Mr Battersby, were involved in a violent altercation after drinking too much at a work event. Mr Jones punched Mr Battersby who in return sent him text messages which contained extremely violent threats, although he did not see the threats through. Mr Jones was summarily dismissed, in contrast to Mr Battersby who received a final written warning on the basis that he had acted in retaliation after Mr Jones had punched him.
The Employment Tribunal upheld Mr Jones' unfair dismissal claim on the basis that he had been treated more severely than Mr Battersby and there was no justification for this. However, the EAT overturned the Tribunal's finding. It held that if it is within the range of reasonable responses to dismiss an employee, it is irrelevant that the employer was unduly lenient towards another employee. Comparing disciplinary sanctions issued to employees will only be relevant if their circumstances are truly parallel, which in this case they were not.
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