Claimant v Tavspackaging Ltd — 2021

The claimant, a machine operator employed from 29 May 2017, alleged unfair dismissal, direct race discrimination and unauthorised deductions. The tribunal rejected the respondent’s account of a redundancy process in July 2019 and found there had been no consultation, no disclosed selection criteria or scores, and no real redundancy situation. It found that the dismissal letter sent on 14 February 2020 did not reflect a genuine redundancy process. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore well-founded, and a remedy hearing was left to be fixed.

On the race discrimination claim, the tribunal considered four alleged acts and dismissed each one. It found that the claimant worked two machine lines because she was a skilled and experienced operator, and that Mr Richardson’s higher pay was explained by his managerial role, financial interest in the business and ability to drive a forklift truck. It accepted that Mr Ilie shouted at the claimant on 12 February 2020 and told her not to speak to Daniel Chodorowski, but found those actions were prompted by the machine incident and concerns about discussing the respondent’s business, not by the claimant’s Polish nationality.

The parties agreed the money claims, so the tribunal made no further determination on entitlement. It ordered the respondent to pay £84.00 in underpaid redundancy pay, £350.00 gross holiday pay and £127.80 gross notice pay. Because the race claim failed, the tribunal did not need to determine the time-limit issue, although it noted that the first two discrimination allegations arose at the start of employment.