Mr. K. Patterson v Quinns Infrastructure Services Limited — 2020

The claimant brought a claim on 30 April 2019 for underpaid wages arising from railway maintenance work over a 12-week period in early 2019. The tribunal noted that on 12 April 2019 the claimant and six others walked off the job after successive underpayments, and that on 18 April 2019 the claimant emailed Quinns seeking outstanding pay for 60 hours at £18 per hour, amounting to £1,080. Quinns denied that it employed the claimant and said it had contracted with DTP Rail Ltd to supply workers.

The tribunal reviewed the purchase order, invoices and emails between Quinns and DTP. It accepted that the arrangements pointed to DTP supplying labour to contractors such as Quinns, with references to poaching staff and customers and with Mr Pugh of DTP referring to "my lads". On the evidence available, the tribunal concluded on the balance of probabilities that the claimant was employed by, or was a worker for, DTP when he performed the work on the Quinns / Network Rail contract. Because the claimant did not attend the hearing and had not supplied his own evidence or calculation, the tribunal made no finding that DTP should be joined to the proceedings.

The unlawful deductions from wages claim was dismissed because the claimant had not established that he was a worker of the respondent within section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and such a claim under sections 13-27 of the Act must be brought by a worker against his employer. The unfair dismissal claim was also dismissed because the claimant was not employed by Quinns and, in any event, he did not have two years' qualifying service. The tribunal gave short reasons on the day and later issued written reasons so the claimant would understand why the claims had failed.