In person For the v Respondent — 2021

The claimant worked for Winmark Ltd from 18 January 2016 and was promoted to Network Director on 1 April 2017. She brought claims for unfair dismissal, direct sex and race discrimination, harassment, victimisation, equal pay and unlawful deductions from wages. The tribunal accepted that she was a strong sales performer, but found there were repeated disagreements between her and management about performance feedback, reporting of revenue and the business case for certain spending.

On the discrimination and harassment allegations, the tribunal considered the pleaded incidents from March 2017 to November 2019, including emails, criticism of budgets, changes to reporting lines, the deletion of a slide from a presentation, and remarks made by Mr Moore after he joined in September 2019. It found that the relevant conduct was explained by management, cost control or business presentation choices, rather than by sex or Romanian nationality/race. The tribunal also found that Mr Moore did not know the claimant's nationality at the relevant time, and that the conduct relied on did not meet the statutory harassment threshold.

On unfair dismissal and victimisation, the tribunal found that Winmark was in a genuine redundancy situation by March and April 2020 as it moved towards a digital business model and faced financial pressure that the pandemic intensified. The claimant and the other Network Directors were placed at risk, consulted, offered alternative roles and furlough, and given appeal rights. The tribunal held that the reason for dismissal was redundancy, that the selection and consultation process was fair, and that the dismissal fell within the band of reasonable responses. Although the claimant's 10 December 2019 grievance was accepted as a protected act, the tribunal found that it was not the reason for her dismissal.

On equal pay, the claimant compared herself with Mr Amar Garcha for the period 1 March 2018 to 3 October 2018. The tribunal found that Mr Garcha had been recruited to a more senior role and that the claimant and the other male Network Director were paid the same. It held that the claimant and Mr Garcha were not employed on like work during the comparison period, so the equal pay claim failed.

On unlawful deductions from wages, the tribunal held that commission claims for clients A, B and C were out of time, but that the claims for clients D and E were in time and fell to be determined at a remedy hearing, with credit to be given for sums already paid. It rejected the claimed sales competition prize because the evidence did not show a binding contractual entitlement. The claimant succeeded only on the claim for a meal voucher for two, which the tribunal fixed at £100.