RMT hails ‘milestone’ ruling that could prompt more redundancy payouts
Hundreds of rail workers who were made redundant could be in line for a major payout after an employment tribunal upheld their claims of unfair dismissal.
Around 1,200 workers lost their jobs in March 2010, when rail maintenance company Jarvis Rail and its Fastline divisions went into administration.
Lawyers for the TSSA and RMT unions claimed that Jarvis should have given 90 days’ notice of compulsory redundancy to the affected staff. The workers claimed they were therefore owed £380 per week, but because the company was folding and had bank debts of more than £17 million, it was unable to foot the bill.
This week an employment tribunal in Leeds decided that their dismissals were unfair, and that liability for redundancy payments to the workers will fall to engineering company Babcock, which took over Jarvis’s contracts. It also said that the claimants would have sufficient continuity of employment to launch unfair dismissal claims against Babcock.
The redundancies caused a major outcry at the time, as many workers ended up being hired by agencies to work on the same projects, but on lower wages, and Babcock was only able to hire a fraction of the affected staff. At one point it was also mooted that the government would have to pick up the redundancy pay tab, which could be as much as £3 million.
RMT’s general secretary Bob Crow said: “It is only through the guts and determination of RMT members and our lawyers at the employment tribunal in Leeds that we have now recorded this milestone victory and the campaign for justice for the Jarvis workforce goes on.”
He added that the collapse of Jarvis had been due to “shocking mismanagement that was nothing to do with the workforce” and that staff had been “dumped out on the stones”.
There will be a further hearing in March next year to decide the value of the unfair dismissal claims