Driver wins transfer claim on redundancy
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• A Cardiff driver has won his claim for redundancy pay after an employment tribunal ruled that the transfer of undertaking regulations applied to work he carried out for three different compares over a period of 30 years.
Graham Whiting began his career as an apprentice diesel fitter for industrial Fuels Transportation (IFT), where he earned his HGV licence and drove tankers on a contract IFT had with Phillips Petroleum. IFT was taken over by United Transport Tankers (UTT) in 1979, but Whiting continued working on the Phillips contract.
Whiting told the tribunal that when P&O took over the Phillips contract in 1994, a P&O manager offered to take him on under the same terms and conditions.
When Whiting was made redundant last October he expected a substantial pay-out, but P&O offered him redundancy and notice pay for only the five years since it had taken over the contract. The company argued that there had been no transfer of undertaking between P&O and UTT.
Finding in Whiting's favour, tribunal chairman Michael Bird said the driver had been performing "the same job, supplying the same particulars, the same customers over a very long period of time and that this was "a solid pillar' on which to conclude that there was a transfer of undertaking.
The ruling entitled Whiting to a maximum redundancy award, the terms of which were settled out of court.