Johnston v Aim Group (Holdings) Limited — 2024

The claimant, an experienced welder supplied to the respondent through Rebus and FAL, had previously withdrawn an automatically unfair dismissal complaint after accepting that he was not an employee of the respondent. The tribunal found he was not a worker under s.230(3) ERA 1996, but was a worker under s.43K because he had been supplied by a third party and the terms on which he worked were in practice substantially determined by the respondent and Rebus.

The tribunal found that on 2 October 2023 the claimant told TG, the workshop manager, that fabricators were only applying two tack welds rather than four to bogies. It accepted that this was a disclosure of information, but held that the claimant did not reasonably believe it tended to show that the health or safety of any individual had been or was likely to be endangered. His concern was that the missing tack welds made his own work more time-consuming because he had to add the missing tacks before final welding.

The tribunal accepted that GH told the claimant on 2 October 2023 that he was being let go, and that GH and JM later spoke to him aggressively. It held, however, that there was no reasonable basis to conclude that the tack-weld disclosure was a material influence on those detriments. The tribunal noted that GH had already raised unsafe lifting concerns on 29 September, TG had reminded the fabricators to apply four tacks at the toolbox talk, and the claimant himself believed the real reason for the termination was cost and the hiring of cheaper labour. As the disclosure was not a protected disclosure and causation was not proved, the whistleblowing detriment complaints were dismissed.