Mr Wictor Sobczyk v Cambridge Hotel — 2021

Employment Judge McLaren found that the claimant, a shuttle driver for the Cambridge Hotel, was an employee on a zero-hour basis rather than a worker as the respondent contended. The tribunal concluded there was personal service, mutuality of obligation once a shift was accepted, a degree of control by the hotel, and integration into the business, with no financial risk borne by the claimant.

On that basis the tribunal held the claimant was entitled to four weeks' pay in lieu of notice, having worked from April 2016 until 30 November 2020. The tribunal further concluded that the employment was terminated by reason of redundancy because the respondent's need for the kind of driving work the claimant carried out had diminished, and accordingly he was entitled to a statutory redundancy payment. Exact figures for both awards were deferred to a remedies hearing to fix the relevant 12-week reference period and average week's pay.

The claims for unlawful deduction of wages under section 13 ERA 1996 and for unpaid holiday pay were dismissed. The tribunal found that as a zero-hour employee he had no entitlement to a guaranteed number of hours and had been paid for hours worked, and that the claimant had not discharged the burden of proving any unpaid holiday entitlement.