In person. For the v Ms H Donnelly, Solicitor. — 2019

At the open preliminary hearing on 23 August 2019, Employment Judge Ord considered whether the claimant’s complaint against Manpower UK Ltd had any reasonable prospect of success. The claimant had started work with the respondent on 26 February 2018 and was placed on assignment with TNT International. On 24 July 2018 he resigned from the TNT assignment, saying that complaints he had raised about colleagues had not been resolved, and he also emailed the respondent saying he wished to resign from the assignment.

The tribunal found that the claimant did not present a legally sustainable claim. When asked to identify the complaint against the respondent, he said the grievance process had taken too long and had been unnecessarily drawn out, including a grievance meeting being arranged when he was on holiday. He also said the delay was deliberate because TNT was a main client of the respondent and the respondent did not wish to investigate allegations about TNT.

The tribunal held that, on the case as advanced, there were no allegations of discriminatory or other unlawful conduct by the respondent. It stated that it had no jurisdiction over the conduct of parties to a contract of employment while that contract subsisted, absent such allegations, and that the claimant’s complaint about commercial considerations did not found a tribunal claim. The claimant’s claim was therefore dismissed as having no reasonable prospect of success.