Driver gets cash award
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A FAILURE to consult a driver about redundancy has led to Emerald Stainless-Steel being ordered by a Manchester industrial tribunal to pay him £6,952.25 compensation for unfair dismissal on top of redundancy pay.
The tribunal was told that Bernard Higginbottom had been employed as a driver at the company's Radcliffe depot, though from time to time he would undertake warehouse duties.
Charles Gray, the company's managing director, said that he had commissioned a report on the company's transport department which recommended that the transport be contracted out. About the same time one of the company's factories closed down with a detrimental effect on the transport department. Consequently, it was decided that the transport manager and all the drivers should be made redundant.
He agreed that some four days before the drivers were told of their redundancy, he had given instructions that rumours about redundancy must be dispelled. He also agreed that two weeks after the drivers were dismissed the need arose in the warehouse to recruit two people, one of whom had some driving duties to perform.
Mr Higginbottom said that the first he knew of the redundancy was when he was dismissed on February 24, being paid his redundancy money and money in lieu of notice. He asked if he could work his notice, but he was required to leave within two hours.
The tribunal said that it believed that it was possible and advisable for the company to have told the drivers earlier. There was no consultation with the Transport and General Workers' Union nor with the individuals before their dismissals.
Sufficient consideration was not given to finding the men alternative employment elsewhere in the group. It was quite possible that if a reasonable period had been allowed for the situation to be analysed, Mr Higginbottom would still have been in the company's employment when the vacancies in the warehouse arose.
It was reasonable to suppose that he would have been offered one of the vacancies.