Mr T Roper (Lay representative) For the v Respondent — 2019

These joined claims were brought by Mr Stuart Bird and Mr Sikander Rashid under section 146 of the 1992 Act, alleging detriment for trade union activities. The tribunal dealt first with time and early conciliation certificate issues, but allowed amendments so that the complaints were treated as in time. It recorded that both claimants were active union representatives and that there was antipathy on both sides, but said the procedural issues should not exclude the claims.

For the first claims, the tribunal found that Ms Sasha Randall's enquiries on 30 November 2017 arose from her role monitoring Sales Investigators through Temetra, Van Tracker logs and productivity reports. It accepted that anomalies in working patterns had been identified and found no evidence that the scrutiny was driven by the claimants' union activities. It also found that the 8 January 2018 monitoring of Mr Rashid's telephone call was part of routine call monitoring, that the call was picked up because of the monitoring in place, and that the apology he later gave did not amount to a detriment.

For the November 2018 grievance complaints, the tribunal held that Claire Bishop did not refuse to hear the grievance; the grievance was too general, and her requests for clarification and offer of HR assistance were justified. For the February 2019 complaints, it found Mr Rashid had been allocated work outside his usual area without prior consultation, but he was not required to work those hours once he objected, so there was no detriment; it also found that Simon Millward did not refuse to deal with the grievance promptly because he sought clarification, progressed the process, arranged a hearing and later proposed a stress risk assessment. All claims were dismissed.