Miss R Roy v G4S Secure Solutions (UK) Limited — 2022

The preliminary hearing considered whether the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the claimant's unfair dismissal claim. The claimant had been removed from a COVID test site assignment and said that, because she lost regular 48-hour weekly work, this was equivalent to losing her job. The respondent accepted that the claimant had been engaged by G4S Secure Solutions (UK) Limited, which was substituted as respondent.

The tribunal found from the documents and submissions that the claimant was expressly engaged as a casual worker using the Javelin platform to register interest in assignments. It did not accept that an email referring to a contract was referring to an employment contract between the claimant and the respondent; it found that the reference was to a contract between G4S and the testing programme organisers.

The tribunal concluded that there was no obligation on the respondent to offer work and no obligation on the claimant to accept work, and that the claimant's zero-hours worker arrangement had not been converted into a permanent contract of employment by her Greenwich assignment. It also found that she had continued to work for the respondent at other sites and had not been dismissed. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore struck out for lack of jurisdiction.