UNISON has successfully defended an appeal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal on behalf of six parking enforcement workers, who were made redundant when the services they provided were sold off to a private company and their jobs relocated from north London.
The six UNISON members had previously won their unfair dismissal case* at the Employment Tribunal, but RRD and NSL appealed this decision to the EAT.
When Barnet Council’s parking enforcement services were outsourced to NSL Limited in May 2012, the plan was for staff to work out of the company’s Croydon office. However an equality impact assessment revealed that many workers would not be able to travel to workplaces outside of Barnet due to caring responsibilities or medical and disability-related conditions that prevented them from driving or travelling long distances.
The council agreed that it would ask NSL to allow these employees to work out of offices in Barnet. However, prior to the transfer, NSL subcontracted the postal and processing work that members of this claim were involved in, to offices in Lancing, near Brighton.
Following the transfer, the workers were made redundant after a month, as they were unable to move from Barnet to either Croydon or Lancing for the reasons above, and due to the cost and time involved with the lengthy journey.
The EAT Judge dismissed NSL and RRD’s appeal on the basis that a change of work location is not a defence to a dismissal following a transfer under TUPE (The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006)**.
UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, said:
“We are delighted that the original tribunal decision on our members’ rightful case for unfair dismissal has been upheld.”
“I am pleased for our members as it has been a long wait. One moment they had a job working for the council, then they were outsourced and their jobs moved. The payment they will receive doesn’t compensate for being made redundant in these difficult times, but it will help.”
ends
Notes to Editors
*Paul Besagni & five others v NSL and RR Donnelly.
**This case was lodged prior to the changes made to TUPE under the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014, which provides as of 31 January 2014, that the meaning of “changes in the workforce” now includes a change of location. It remains to be seen whether the changes to TUPE which will now permit an employer to dismiss employees that refuse to relocate after a transfer are contrary to European legislation and will be challenged.