rooms per day, they were entitled to inform their line manager and leave at the end of their shift. The employees claimed that the requirement to work overtime arose because they were asked to do more work than could be accomplished within their normal working day. As a result they claimed unlawful deduction from wages for the non-payment of overtime relating to the half-hour per day they worked in their breaks. The claim was rejected at the tribunal and the employees appealed. The EAT rejected the appeal on the basis that the requirement to co-operate with a short notice request to work overtime could not and did not limit the express condition in the employees’ contracts that overtime was voluntary. 13 March 2012 Can a change of location on a TUPE transfer give rise to a claim for constructive, automatically unfair, dismissal? Daniel Barnett’s Law Bulletin reports: Yes, says the EAT (Langstaff P) in Abellio London v CentreWest London Buses . The 5 claimants in this case worked as bus drivers for CentreWest, which ran the 414 bus route operated from its Westbourne Park depot. This location suited the employees' family circumstances, and where they lived. The route was transferred to Abellio. It intended to operate the route from its own depot in Battersea. It was accepted by the parties that this was a service provision change, and therefore a relevant transfer, under Reg 3(1)(b) of TUPE. The claimants all had objections to the new location. It affected their travel and domestic arrangements. The new location would mean between 1 and 2 hours extra travelling per day. They resigned. It was held by the employment tribunal that there had been a substantial change to the employees' working conditions to their material detriment under Reg 4(9) of TUPE. The move was additionally a repudiatory breach of contract (in that a mobility clause in the employment contract did not extend to the Battersea location). Therefore the employees were also constructively dismissed for the purposes of Reg 4(11) of TUPE. It followed that the dismissals were automatically unfair, being by reason of the transfer. The EAT agreed, citing with approval the EAT decision on the same point in Tapere v South London and Maudsley NHS Trust [2009] IRLR 972. 13 March 2012 A European decision in a case looked at whether a provision of French law imposing a rule that workers on sick leave must have actually worked for at least a month in a leave year before they could take, or be paid for, any annual leave accrued under the French equivalent of the Working Time Regulations was permissible. Emplaw online reported the following: In this case ( Dominguez v Centre informatique du Centre Ouest Atlantique ) the court said no, and then went on to say that the relevant provision of the Working Time Directive are "directly effective". The principle of "direct effectiveness" means that EU YET ANOTHER CASE OF LONG TERM SICK EMPLOYEES AND ANNUAL LEAVE TUPE AND SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
CIPP Policy News Journal
09/10/2012, Page 69 of 234
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