Sean McAllister and Elaine Watson
Sainsbury could face a multi-million pound bill after losing an unfair dismissal case brought by 61 former store managers at a Watford employment tribunal.
A remedies hearing to thrash out the terms of any compensation package was still in progress as The Grocer went to press, but the managers were looking at up to £88,000 each, said David Royden, the solicitor representing the managers.
The managers were told last January that they did not meet the requirements of a new job specification and given the option of a severance package or undergoing a competency assessment.
Claims were divided into three representative cases.
Although there was a genuine redundancy situation, in that store managers' roles had substantially changed, the criteria for choosing which managers to assess was unfair, ruled the tribunal.
Moreover, the assessment, which was intended to assess future capability, should not have included an assessment of current performance. In the case of the first test applicant, the appeals process was a "sham", said the tribunal. "Effectively, there was no appeal at all."
Royden told The Grocer: "We won on the basis that Sainsbury used inappropriate selection criteria in the three sample cases.
"This is a major employer that has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a legal team and was still found to have unfairly dismissed some of its most senior staff.
"How can it be that a company like this should fall so foul of basic employment rights for some of its most loyal and long-serving members of staff?"
Sainsbury MD Stuart Mitchell declined to comment before the remedies hearing was complete.
A decision on the level of compensation is expected in early June.
{{NEWS }}
Sainsbury could face a multi-million pound bill after losing an unfair dismissal case brought by 61 former store managers at a Watford employment tribunal.
A remedies hearing to thrash out the terms of any compensation package was still in progress as The Grocer went to press, but the managers were looking at up to £88,000 each, said David Royden, the solicitor representing the managers.
The managers were told last January that they did not meet the requirements of a new job specification and given the option of a severance package or undergoing a competency assessment.
Claims were divided into three representative cases.
Although there was a genuine redundancy situation, in that store managers' roles had substantially changed, the criteria for choosing which managers to assess was unfair, ruled the tribunal.
Moreover, the assessment, which was intended to assess future capability, should not have included an assessment of current performance. In the case of the first test applicant, the appeals process was a "sham", said the tribunal. "Effectively, there was no appeal at all."
Royden told The Grocer: "We won on the basis that Sainsbury used inappropriate selection criteria in the three sample cases.
"This is a major employer that has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a legal team and was still found to have unfairly dismissed some of its most senior staff.
"How can it be that a company like this should fall so foul of basic employment rights for some of its most loyal and long-serving members of staff?"
Sainsbury MD Stuart Mitchell declined to comment before the remedies hearing was complete.
A decision on the level of compensation is expected in early June.
{{NEWS }}
No comments yet