Giwa v Barbican YMCA [1997] UKEAT 1167_96_2403

EAT
Giwa v Barbican YMCA
[1997] UKEAT 1167_96_2403 · 1997-03-24

JUDGE N BUTTER QC :

......This case is listed as the preliminary hearing of an appeal by Ms Giwa in respect of a decision of the Industrial Tribunal at Stratford held on 12 August 1996. The Tribunal sent out its Extended Reasons on 3 September 1996. The Applicant was represented before that Tribunal by a Ms Murphy of the City of London Citizens Advice Bureau and Ms Murphy in due course drafted the Notice of Appeal, which we have considered, with particular reference to the grounds set out in paragraph 6 (a), (b) and (c).The preliminary hearing was listed to occur in February of this year, but the Employment Appeal Tribunal granted an adjournment at the request of the Citizens Advice Bureau. No skeleton argument has been filed and no one has attended today on behalf of the Appellant. Enquiries have been made and we have been asked to continue with the preliminary hearing despite the absence of any representation. The unanimous decision of the Tribunal below was that the Applicant was not unfairly dismissed.The background to the case was that the Applicant had been employed for almost 15 years at the date of her dismissal, as a general kitchen assistant and a counter assistant in the Respondent's restaurant in the Barbican YMCA. The Respondents decided that it was necessary to refurbish completely the kitchen at the premises and the Respondents then decided that all the employees who worked in the kitchen and the restaurant should be dismissed for redundancy and that they should be invited to apply for new jobs which had been created. There were eight vacancies and ten employees.The Tribunal dealt with the evidence which they had heard and expressly accepted the evidence of Mr Swan, the General Secretary, and they also accepted the evidence of a Ms Carey, who gave evidence to them. The evidence established that it had been explained to all the staff at a meeting on 17 November and subsequently at meetings with individual members of the staff, as to what was happening, and the staff were told that they would have every opportunity to apply for the new jobs. Job descriptions were given to each member of the staff and the Tribunal found that the only difference between the Applicant's old job description and the new job description was that she would be required to work from 8.00 am until 2.00 pm instead of formerly from 7.00 am to 1.00 pm. The Tribunal accepted that there had been full consultation and that Mr Swan had gone to great lengths to explain to the Applicant exactly what was going to happen.In paragraph 4 of their decision the Tribunal said:
"4 ... the Respondents established the reason for the Applicant's dismissal, namely redundancy. It seems clear that the Respondents having decided upon a refurbishment of the kitchen realised that there would be a diminution in the amount of work which was to be available and that this was going to lead to the reduction of staff from 10 to 8. ..."
The Tribunal went on, in considering the question of fairness, to express the view that it was a little odd that the employers had gone about the matter in the way they had in declaring redundant all the employees, but added:
"We can however, see nothing so unreasonable in an employer adopting this method of doing it that it would be possible for a Tribunal to say that such a method must, of itself, necessarily be unfair. It is a method we find which can be adopted by an employer acting reasonably. The question in our view which falls for us to determine is whether having adopted this method, the Respondents then explained to the staff and fully consulted with them what was going to happen and gave them a full opportunity of applying for the new jobs. This we find on the evidence of Mr Swan and Ms Carey that they did. ..."
In the end the Tribunal said that there was, in their view, nothing so unreasonable in the method adopted by the Respondents that it can be stigmatised as being automatically unfair, because of the way in which the Respondents chose to carry out the redundancy exercise, and they concluded that the Applicant's claim did not succeed and must be dismissed.We have, as I have indicated at an earlier stage of this judgment, considered the various matters set out with the Notice of Appeal. As I have already indicated, no one has appeared to argue the matter or to present any authority in support of the contentions. On the basis of the information before us, we do not consider that there are here any reasonable grounds of appeal, raising matters which might reasonably lead to the appeal succeeding.In these circumstances and for these reasons it is our unanimous decision that the appeal fails and must be dismissed.