Mr Santos Tarrio v Transport UK East Midlands Limited — 2024

Mr Santos Tarrio brought a single claim for unauthorised deductions from wages against Transport UK East Midlands Limited. The tribunal recorded that the parties agreed he had been correctly paid up to his termination date of 1 September 2023, and the dispute was whether he was entitled to the later negotiated 2022 pay award and the associated back pay after he had left employment on ill-health grounds.

The tribunal found that on 4 December 2023 the respondent, RMT and TSSA agreed a 2022 pay award of 5% or £1,750, whichever was greater, backdated to 1 April 2022, but the agreement expressly applied only to employees "who are in EMR’s employment at 30 November 2023." Because the claimant was not employed on that date, the express wording excluded him from the award.

The claimant relied on previous instances where leavers had apparently been paid backdated pay, but the tribunal held that the evidence fell far short of showing a sufficiently established, well known and clear custom or practice to imply a term requiring payment to leavers. In any event, the tribunal held that express terms take precedence over implied terms and that the express wording of the agreement excluded leavers.

Applying section 13 ERA 1996 and the authorities cited on whether wages were "properly payable", the tribunal concluded that the backdated pay claimed by Mr Tarrio was not wages properly payable to him. The claim for unauthorised deductions from wages was therefore dismissed. No monetary award was made.