Ms. Urszula Hajdas v Took US A Long Time Ltd — 2020

The claimant brought claims for unpaid statutory redundancy pay, unpaid notice pay, unpaid holiday pay on termination, and unpaid pension entitlement. She did not dispute that she was redundant; the dispute was about the calculation of her week's pay and, for leave, whether the furlough agreement allowed accrued leave to be treated as taken. The tribunal heard evidence from the claimant and from Ms Mayuri Vachhani for the respondent.

On the week's pay issue, the tribunal held that the claimant did not have normal working hours for the purposes of section 224 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 because, although her contract provided for a minimum of 30 hours per week, her actual hours varied and she often worked more or fewer than that minimum. The week used in the 12-week calculation should not have been the week in which she worked 15.25 hours; instead, a 30-hour week at £264 should have been included. That produced an average week's pay of £357.83. Using that figure, the correct statutory redundancy payment would have been £3,936.13, so £119.01 remained unpaid. The tribunal rejected the claimant's case that the £3,817.12 already paid was an ex gratia payment, finding instead that it was the statutory redundancy payment.

On notice pay, the tribunal found that the claimant was entitled to 10 weeks' notice, not 11 weeks' monetary entitlement. On the tribunal's calculation, 10 weeks at £357.83 came to £3,578.30. After deducting the furlough pay and notice pay already received, £59.99 remained outstanding. On holiday pay, the tribunal held that the furlough agreement clearly allowed annual leave accrued both before and during furlough to be treated as taken, but the claimant was still entitled to a 20% top-up under the furlough agreement and the redundancy notice. Applying regulation 14 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, the tribunal found £5.97 remained unpaid. The respondent conceded at the hearing that £45.39 net was due in respect of pension entitlement, and the tribunal ordered payment of all four sums.