AFROJA BIBI SONIA v Hartiz Ltd — 2022

Afroja Bibi Sonia worked for Hartiz Ltd as a waitress from 5 September 2020 to 24 July 2021 without a written contract. The tribunal rejected her case that she had a 30-hour contract, a later £9.50 hourly rate, or rolled-up holiday pay, and found instead that she was employed on a zero-hours basis at £9 per hour. On the bank and HMRC records it accepted that she was furloughed from early November 2020 until 30 June 2021, and it found that she had been underpaid during furlough, had accrued unpaid holiday pay, and had not been paid for 61.5 hours worked in July 2021.

The automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.104 ERA 1996 failed. The tribunal did not find theft proved, but it accepted that Mr Afzal genuinely believed, after viewing CCTV from 23 July 2021, that the claimant had kept cash back from the till. Because the claimant did not show that her complaints about wages were the reason or principal reason for dismissal, the tribunal dismissed the automatic unfair dismissal claim.

The tribunal awarded one week's notice pay at £245.42 net, two weeks' pay at £491 under s.38 Employment Act 2002 for failure to provide written particulars, £1,215 net holiday pay, £1,688 net for furlough underpayment, and £553.50 gross for July 2021 hours. It also found that the respondent had unreasonably failed to comply with the ACAS Code and said a 10% uplift was just and equitable, although the extracted order does not set out a coherent final uplift arithmetic.