Mr. Albert Uwadiae v Crystal Services plc — 2023

Mr Uwadiae worked as an Area Manager from 17 May 2010 until his dismissal on 26 October 2021. The tribunal found that the working pattern he had followed in the Dulwich division before September 2020, involving morning or evening site visits together with daytime administration, had become a contractual implied term through long practice. After his move to the Loughton division, Ms Compton and Mr Correa sought to require him to do morning and evening site visits five days a week and to remain constantly available by phone and email, which the tribunal found was an attempted contractual variation without consultation or consent.

The claimant raised grievances from October 2020 onwards about the change in working pattern and about his treatment by managers. The tribunal found those grievances and the related disciplinary matters were not properly investigated, that the officers involved were not independent, and that Mr Jerman's emails showed direct involvement in the process despite his evidence that he was staying out of it. The tribunal accepted Mr Omojuwa's evidence as corroborating the claimant's account of similar treatment of another Black Area Manager under the same managers.

Applying section 98 ERA 1996, Burchell, and the band of reasonable responses, the tribunal held that the respondent failed to show misconduct was the genuine reason for dismissal. It found the claimant's refusal to agree to the new work pattern was not misconduct amounting to gross misconduct and that the dismissal was unfair. The tribunal also held, in the alternative, that the procedure was biased and inadequate from the outset and that dismissal for gross misconduct was outside the band of reasonable responses.

On the race claim, the tribunal found that the change to the claimant's working pattern, the handling of his grievances and appeals, and his dismissal were all detriments. It concluded that race was the reason for the less favourable treatment, relying on the lack of a reasonable investigation into both the working-pattern dispute and the allegations of race discrimination, the evidence about Mr Omojuwa, and the absence of a credible non-discriminatory explanation. The tribunal referred to the burden of proof under section 136 Equality Act 2010 and the comparator approach in Shamoon and Igen.

On pay, the tribunal rejected the claimant's case that he worked continuously from 5am to 10pm and found that he remained on his contractual 42.5-hour week. The claim for additional hours and payment below the National Minimum Wage therefore failed. A separate unlawful deduction claim succeeded because a full day's wages had been deducted when the grievance meeting in question later lasted only half a day; the tribunal said at most half a day's deduction was justified. No remedy figure was determined in this judgment, and the remedy hearing was listed for 29 and 30 June 2023. The tribunal also recommended further equal opportunities training for managers on conscious and subconscious discrimination.