In this case, the retailer Boots took a business decision to reduce long-serving workers' double time for Sunday and bank holiday working to time-and-a-half, but the employment tribunal found this to be an unlawful variation of the workers' terms and conditions of employment.
Georgina Kyriacou and David Malamatenios are partners and Sandra Martins, Colin Makin and Krishna Santra are associates at Colman Coyle Solicitors. They round up the latest rulings.
In this test case, the employment tribunal found that an NHS trust had unlawfully amended its pay progression policy to provide that staff would be denied a pay rise if their sickness absence reached a certain level.
The employer in this case fell into the trap of assuming that, as long as it waited for a while (one year in this case) after a TUPE transfer, it could detrimentally alter the contractual benefits of employees who had transferred, in a bid to harmonise its workforce's terms and conditions.
A model letter to explain to a former employee that a deduction is being made from a final salary payment to take account of an accidental overpayment discovered after they left your organisation.