Claimant v Glow Green Ltd — 2023

Jahwel Bromfield worked for Glow Green Ltd from March 2019 until his dismissal at the probationary review meeting on 26 April 2019. The tribunal found that the written offer letter and contract, read together, provided for payment of £180 per completed unit, with payment only when the job was complete and the paperwork had been submitted. It rejected the claimant’s case that he was entitled to a day rate of £180, although it accepted that some jobs were unpaid because the paperwork was incomplete.

On the dismissal claim, the tribunal accepted that the claimant telephoned managing director Lloyd Greenfield on 12 April 2019, but found that the only words he used were that he had 'health and safety issues'. That was not enough to amount to a disclosure of information for s103A and s43B ERA purposes. Looking at the earlier dealings between the claimant and Daniel Edwards, the tribunal found that the claimant generally sought support with individual jobs and that, on the one occasion where he specifically raised health and safety in relation to the Ealing job, Edwards acted promptly. The tribunal also found that the decision to dismiss had already been made before the 26 April meeting because of poor workmanship, customer complaints and the claimant’s conduct in accusing Edwards of lying, so any later discussion at the meeting could not have been the reason for dismissal. The section 100 health and safety dismissal argument was also rejected for the same reason.

On wages, the tribunal found that the respondent had underpaid the claimant on 2 of 14 units, because those units had been paid at £160 instead of £180. It held that the claimant was owed a further £40 gross and ordered payment of that sum subject to PAYE. It rejected the wider claim for £6,060 said to be outstanding on the basis that the contract was not a salary/day-rate arrangement. The tribunal also held that it had no jurisdiction to determine the separate complaint about tools left in the van, valued by the claimant at £1,250, because that was not a wages claim and would more properly be pursued, if at all, in tort or conversion.