Employment Tribunal Decisions - holiday pay

[Kaning It]

Checking over recent Employment Tribunal decisions, it would appear that not only do Royal Mail get taken to employment tribunals a lot for all sorts of issues, those who didn’t take the Union deal over holiday pay but carried on with their claims, not surprisingly, won.

Royal Mail “concedes that it unlawfully deducted the sum of £x from the Claimant’s wages.”

“The Final Hearing listed in this case on 10-14 October 2022 is cancelled.”

The pressure from Royal Mail’s legal team was immense with threats of thousands of pounds of costs being sought from posties if they refused to settle. Some settled under the pressure, some carried on which meant the only way for the Royal Mail to avoid losing a full trial, was for them to capitulate on each remaining case and admit they had indeed unlawfully deducted holiday pay wages.

Royal Mail and their lawyers know full well they should be paying holiday pay based on the last 12 months average pay. And yet, the Union agreed this 8 hour a month nonsense. Embarrassing.

There are a lot of cases against the Royal Mail to go through, but the holiday pay decisions are there: https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal- ... -and-wales

[Route1]

I cant find any case aout Hoilday Pay.....any tips finding any?

[Kaning It]

They are not easy to find, not least as they don’t mention the words holiday pay (handy for Royal Mail) but here are two: (I suspect most Claimants felt bullied/frightened by RM’s threat the ET might make them pay RM thousands of pounds if they lost hence they will have felt they had no choice but to agree a confidential settlement, meaning no online result).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... dgment.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... dgment.pdf

[HTPostman]

It angers me the union ever agreed to this (or put it to a branch vote).

Forget silly gate meetings with hands raised and petty memes/pics (although the Grinch one was funny), as soon as ST started playing silly buggers the union should’ve torn the ridiculous 8 hour agreement up and resumed helping everyone put in individual claims, let’s see how RM, ACAS and the courts like 40000/50000 new claims going in.

For me personally when I missed out I started my own claim. ACAS required an actual name/number/email from someone from HR, HR wouldn’t provide it (because they said ACAS already have Royal Mails generic contact details), this went back and forth for a while and then the claim couldn’t process any further because of HRs refusal.

The following week I came to a very good ghost OT deal with my line manager which pretty much equalled what I would have got had my claim been processed. As far as I was concerned that evened it out, I felt I’d ‘got square’ and I haven’t done a single minute of overtime since.

[Kaning It]

Everyone should be angry really as the Union would have clearly won the case. The law is clear, people should be paid their average pay over the previous 12 months and by admitting these claims, the Royal Mail know it.

For the Union to encourage people to make claims and then do a stupid deal and just drop people leaving them to try and figure it all out for themselves against corporate lawyers who weren’t afraid to bully people was disgraceful.

Anyone who doesn’t get holiday pay based on their average pay over the previous 12 months, should continue to put in a claim and not be put off by any rhetoric from any quarter. The 8 hour made up Union/RM rule is proven BS.

[SSkUNkY]

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

Royal Mail is enabled by the courts not imposing penalties on them when it has the opportunity to do so.

This kind of behaviour will continue as it is very profitable for Royal Mail to commit as much wage theft as possible, the worst that can happen is they are forced to return the money after an extremely drawn out process or they simply get to keep it as the claimants lose the will to live and withdraw after being bullied and threatened.

The law is on Royal Mails side, there is no justice. The whole system is broken and morals are irrelevant.

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

[SSkUNkY]

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

Every benefit of doubt is given to Royal Mail.

The whole process is completely one-sided, it is like going to play a game where the opponent practices every day for 10hours and you have never played before.

Royal Mail seemingly has no burden to provide a way to pay their employees, according to those enforcing the law, and the fault instead lies with the employee for not carrying out advanced analysis on all numerical data even after RM is informed on numerous occasions that they have made a serious mistake.

Apparently all the cases the union brought to force RM to address this had little to no effect and the whole reason for the decade long delay was down to the complexity of holidays in Employment Law. (I am not sure if the person who wrote this was even able to convince themselves it is true never mind anyone else, especially considering that RM has been paying out claims against this for years and including gagging clauses to prevent others catching on).

Furthermore the considerable time and effort it takes to retrieve any moneys that is eventually paid under pain of death and after having been dragged kicking and screaming through the courts is coupled with numerous stipulations and caveats even though it has already been earned. Of course all of the time and effort that RM has managed to waste is not reimbursed by the court as that would be far too reasonable and fair.

Overall, the system stinks, those in charge are complicit, and are as guilty as Royal Mail.

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

[redlen]

At the start of the process, following EAT decisions with other employers, the CWU were going to take half a dozen claims to the tribunal service as a collective action to set a persuasive precedent. In the end, they bottled it for whatever reason, preferring to get the members to do it themselves with little or no legal training.

Employees/members are now suffering a financial detriment because of the agreement made between Royal Mail and the CWU. They had already set a legal precedent at the EAT so employees/members could not lose.

Ask yourself why?

[DGH]

At the start of the process, following EAT decisions with other employers, the CWU were going to take half a dozen claims to the tribunal service as a collective action to set a persuasive precedent. In the end, they bottled it for whatever reason, preferring to get the members to do it themselves with little or no legal training.

Employees/members are now suffering a financial detriment because of the agreement made between Royal Mail and the CWU. They had already set a legal precedent at the EAT so employees/members could not lose.

Excellent point. It has puzzled me for a long time as to why the CWU is not more robust in challenging RM's more blatant chicanery, of which this was the prime example.

My own conclusion is that the CWU did not wish to give greater incentive to do overtime, ignoring the fact that a huge proportion of the workforce are regularly working full time hours on part time contracts (another thing that they seem bafflingly reluctant to address properly - I suspect because they fear a proper application of the law, giving the contract hours to the peopel who have worked those hours would 'undermine' seniority. Which is a joke).

[SSkUNkY]

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

The other massive issue is that one judge is presiding over all Royal Mail claims and sees the same solicitor from Weightmans, representing RM, on a near daily basis.

With whom it may be exceedingly easy to fall into the trap of unconscious bias through having formed a good working relationship and increased empathy due to holding a very similar position himself prior to becoming an employment judge.

Each of course has the power to make the others life more difficult.

The disdain and thoroughly unprofessional behaviour shown by RM's solicitor to people who have never participated in any legal proceedings before was shocking, and the fact the judge refused to pull him up on it even more so.

(THIS IS AN OPINION PIECE AND NOT A STATEMENT OF FACT)

[HTPostman]

I was annoyed at the whole situation when I fell short by minutes of the (farcically agreed by the union) 8 hour a month rule. I tried to open a case through ACAS but RM simply refused to provide any contact details so the case couldn’t proceed. Could you imagine if you robbed a bank and simply refused to give the police your name so they let you go?

Some will call me petty but I worked out what I was owed, and worked out if I doubled my indoor break for 11 weeks solid we’d be quits. Obviously I’d have preferred the money but RM now pay me to sit on my arse for 40 minutes each morning instead of 20.

In 3 weeks time we are even.

[SSkUNkY]

??? RM contact information is simply their phone number and address - GOOGLE IT.

RM does not decide whether or not you can open a case, you do.

You can write on the application that you are not represented by the Union in this matter and you want what is owed under Employment Law, whatever the Union has agreed is irrelevant, they don't decide what is law and what isn't.

You need to check if you are in time though and provide reasons for the late submission, if it is indeed late, else make sure to send in your claim for the next period and keep doing so. Royal Mail has made over £100million from this scam so far and the courts are completely on their side where ever possible with those passing judgment complicit by not penalising RM when given a clear opportunity to do so.

[redlen]

The tribunal service can only go on what is written in the particulars of claim from the claimant as a cause of action.

The reason why the majority fail is that employees are not legally proficient in understanding the process. It is obscene the CWU abandoned their collective action encouraging employees to be Perry Mason. This I believe was by design to get the employees to accept their own proposal with Royal Mail agreement to the financial detriment of the employee.

The CWU now act more of a corporate partner with Royal Mail than employee mouth Piece. Look at this current proposed settlement they expect employees to vote and accept as the best thing since sliced bread. Totally out of touch at grass roots.

[HTPostman]

??? RM contact information is simply their phone number and address - GOOGLE IT.

RM does not decide whether or not you can open a case, you do.

The tribunal were very clear with me that they needed the name, job title, email and phone number of a direct contact within RM. I couldn’t just put ‘Royal Mail HR, Sheffield’ or wherever it is.

I asked RM through the people app for this information, they said they do not release that info.

The case couldn’t proceed and I was given 21 days to provide the contact details or ‘we would consider the matter brought to a satisfactory conclusion’ or words to that effect.

I was very tempted to put my managers details but that would have been more bother than it’s worth.

[SSkUNkY]

Not sure who it was you spoke to on behalf of the tribunals service but I have submitted numerous claims, which I have won, and can tell you for certain that this is not the case.

It is when there is any room for discretion that every benefit of the doubt is given to RM by those in charge.

If in doubt put the address of your own delivery office and the name of the DOM, though he will not deal with this.