Legal News

Three sub contract workers who were employed by Kitsons Environmental Europe Ltd of Warrington, Cheshire, a specialist asbestos removal and thermal installation company, were made redundant but an employment tribunal in Dundee ruled that theirs was an unfair dismissal as the evidence of their operations manager, who had decided to sack them, was neither credible nor reliable.
The three men James Heggie, David Galloway and Brian Russel’s contracts said that they were entitled to be paid for full, eight hour shifts at weekends irrespective of how many hours they actually worked.
This arrangement was known as ‘job and knock’ which the three said allowed them to leave the site when the job they were entrusted with was completed.
Kitsons carried out maintenance work on the site during the week and ad hoc non-maintenance work at weekends, as specified by the main contractor Doosan Babcock.
In February 2010 Ralph Livingston, the operations manager, wrote to Mr Galloway and Mr Heggie that they were potential candidates for redundancy but within few days they were advised that they were not to be selected.
Mr Livingston from Rosyth had told the tribunal that in February 2011 he was called to the GlaxoSmithKline site where the security company had told him that it was concerned about the Kitsons vehicle coming and going a great deal at weekends.
He was asked to find out what was happening and he checked gate reports for a ''snapshot'' of the previous weekends and then instructed his company's payroll to check the gate reports against the times claimed in the Kitsons employees' payslips and these revealed a discrepancy between the hours worked and paid for and the times the men were on site.
Kitsons' HR department who conducted an investigation called the three men to an investigatory meeting without telling them that the meeting was concerning allegations of misconduct.
They were accused of leaving the site earlier than agreed, receiving monies for hours not worked and were told they could be disciplined and dismissed. They were dismissed and they appealed but were not successful.
They did not dispute the allegations but said that their position was widespread, accepted and known practice when makeshift work was carried out at weekends.
The tribunal said the whole disciplinary process from investigation to dismissal was rushed through within five days. Such haste was not the hallmark of a reasonable employer the tribunal stated.
They believed the haste was consistent with Mr Livingston's involvement throughout, and his desire to end the matter as soon as possible.
They said the investigation was conducted with a list of leading questions and Mr Livingston had misrepresented the men's answers. The tribunal also faulted Mr Livingston going to Mr Galloway's home in Dundee to check on his address.
The tribunal concluded the three men were unfairly dismissed and their cases would be continued to a remedy hearing.