Your legal rights

Transport union RMT has hailed an employment tribunal ruling that bus company Arriva unlawfully discriminated against two employees because of their RMT membership.

Marcus Farr and Len Graves were harassed, disciplined and threatened with the sack by Arriva because they wore high visibility vests with the union logo on.

The tribunal ordered Arriva to pay the men compensation, including aggravated damages to Mr Graves, and to pay the union its legal costs.

You can read the Agency Workers Regulations - which set out the legal rights of agency workers - here.

This article is about an important Employment Tribunal decision regarding a claim of disability related discrimination. The claimant, a London Underground ticket office worker, won the tribunal and following appeal.

"Appeal by Respondents against ET's findings on disability related discrimination, reasonable adjustments and unfair dismissal. No error of law found in ET's reasoning or decisions on these claims. Given their findings of fact, they were held to be entitled to find in the Claimant's favour and their judgment was held to be sufficiently reasoned. Appeal dismissed."

Continue reading to see the case in full.

Justice has prevailed in the case of RMT member William Etchells who has succeeded in his claim for unfair dismissal against Churchill Cleaning Services Limited – contractors on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

According to the TUC, the Swedish Derogation is: “an option written into the EU Temporary Agency Work Directive that allows member States to insert a provision into their transposing legislation that says that where an agency worker is directly employed by an agency they are not protected by the equal treatment provisions in the Directive. The UK Regulations, which come into force in October, make use of the “Swedish” derogation.

"We...believe that the judgment in Mihaj vs Sodexo may be very useful for members in other companies"

We note with concern the correspondence advising that Brother Mihaj had not received the payment ordered by the Employment Tribunal within the required timescale, but note that he has now received the payment.

We further note that Brother Mihaj was successful in his Employment Tribunal application on the grounds that his employer did not use discretion in his case despite the contract of employment stating that discretion applied. We note that many employers routinely act in a similar fashion, for example refusing payments or applying disciplinary sanctions without exercising the discretion the contract or policy includes.

From RMT General Secretary Bob Crow

I have received reports that agency workers employed by Trainpeople.co.uk engaged on Grand Central Railways and London Underground’s Bakerloo Line contracts have not been paid for the second month running and have been excluded from the Agency Worker Regulations by Trainpeople.co.uk, who are using the Swedish derogation contract model to employ our members.

From RMT General Secretary Bob Crow

I refer to my Circulars Nos 095 and 076. 2012 notifying you of the proposed Legal changes in Employment and Personal Injury cases.

Your Council of Executives have begun to consider the impact of these changes upon this Union; in fact we are probably the first Union to involve and inform our members.

These changes are without a doubt massive Con/Dem attacks on employment laws for workers. At our June 2012 Statutory Meeting your Council of Executives approved and adopted the following Action Plan.

We note the disappointing legal advice on this matter, and are appalled that employers apparently have such rights over our members’ personal information. We instruct the General Secretary to issue appropriate advice to our Tube Lines members, to send the full legal advice to the Secretaries of our LU Engineering and LU Fleet branches, and to seek their views on how to pursue this issue.

London Transport Regional Council, LU Engineering and LU Fleet branch to be advised.