in person For the v Respondent — 2019

The hearing was a preliminary hearing on amendment, strike out and case management. The claimant confirmed that he no longer pursued the religion or belief discrimination claim, and that claim was dismissed by consent. The tribunal also considered the claimant's complaint that after he opted out of Sunday working his hours were reduced from 15 to 10, together with proposed additions including age, sex, part-time worker, victimisation and unlawful deduction allegations.

The tribunal held that the Sunday working complaint was not a new claim but a relabelling of the original complaint. Although the reduction in hours had taken effect on 11 January 2018 and the claim was otherwise out of time on a conventional calculation, the tribunal exercised its discretion in the claimant's favour because of delay by the respondent in dealing with his grievance, so the Sunday working claim was allowed to proceed.

The remaining claims were struck out as having no reasonable prospect of success. The tribunal found that the age discrimination, victimisation, breach of contract and unlawful deduction claims were out of time and/or unsupported on the factual basis advanced. It relied on the claimant's signed Sunday working opt-out notice, his contract change form, and the fact that any deduction from wages had been repaid and had been authorised by agreement to the reduced hours.

The tribunal also refused the proposed amendments to add age, sex, part-time worker, victimisation and unlawful deduction claims. It found the new allegations were significantly out of time, that no protected act had been identified for victimisation, that no suitable full-time comparator had been identified for the part-time worker point, and that the alleged grievance handling did not amount to a continuing act of discrimination. No deposit order was made.