Where the performance of union duties stopped a worker from doing the job he was employed for properly, a redundancy selection was possible. Here there was no redundancy comparator for a shop steward spending half his time on union activities. The court cautioned against use of phrases about procedural unfairness: ‘In my judgment, in a case where the reason or principal reason for dismissal is redundancy but the employer acted unreasonably in some particular respect in the process of selecting the applicant for redundancy so that the dismissal was rendered unfair, it is for the industrial tribunal to decide what it is just and equitable in all the circumstances to award the applicant, having regard to the loss sustained by the applicant in so far as that loss is attributable to action by the employer (see what is now ERA 1996 section 123(1) set out below at paragraph 66). To a case such as the present, where the industrial tribunal are satisfied that the particular defect in what the employer did only deprived the applicant of a chance that he would have been retained in the absence of such a defect, the applicability of the dictum, already cited, of Browne-Wilkinson J and its good sense seem to me obvious. I do not regard it as helpful to characterise the defect as procedural or substantive nor in my view should the industrial tribunal be expected to do so, though in fact in the present case the industrial did repeatedly describe the defect as procedural. The fact of the matter is that Mr. O’Dea lost only a one in five chance of being retained, and I can see no arguable case that he should have been compensated on the same footing as if he was bound to have been retained but for his trade union activitie.s’
Judges:
Peter Gibson LJ
Citations:
Times 04-Aug-1995, Independent 24-Aug-1995, [1995] IRLR 599, [1996] ICR 222
Statutes:
Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 58 59
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Sillifant v Powell Duffryn Timber Ltd CA 1983
The court explained the principle on ‘British Labour Pump’ as follows: ‘even if, judged in the light of the circumstances known at the time of dismissal, the employer’s decision was not reasonable because of some failure to follow a fair procedure . .
Appeal from – O’Dea v ISC Chemicals Ltd (T/A Rhone-Poulenc Chemicals) EAT 14-Feb-1994
. .
Cited by:
Cited – Lambe v 186K Ltd CA 29-Jul-2004
The claimant had been dismissed for redundancy, but the company had been found not to have consulted him properly, and he had therefore been unfairly dismissed. The tribunal had then found that even if consulted the result would not have been . .
Cited – Alexander and Hatherley v Bridgen Enterprises Ltd EAT 12-Apr-2006
The company made selections for redundancy, but failed to give the appellants information about how the scoring system had resulted in the figures allocated. The calculations left their representative unable to challenge them on appeal. The . .
Cited – Software 2000 Ltd v Andrews etc EAT 17-Jan-2007
EAT Four employees successfully established before the Employment Tribunal that they had been unfairly dismissed for redundancy. The Tribunal found that there had been procedural defects. In particular the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 20 December 2022; Ref: scu.84424