The claimant was employed by the respondent as a cleaner at one designated site in Belfast.  It was not disputed that he had been provided with a Statement of Main Terms and Conditions which included a number of relevant contractual terms for when a situation arose concerning temporary stoppage of work. This document provided for a ‘Layoff period’ during which the employee would not be paid but could be reengaged when work restarted. In 8 December 2016 the claimant was advised that the cleaning contract was moving elsewhere and his final shift would be on 17 December 2016.

At no point did the respondent consider placing the claimant on notice of possible redundancy or initiating the “lay off” contractual provision. The respondent appeared to expect the claimant to agree to receive no payment if no hours of work were offered. The employment was eventually terminated but the tribunal held that the claimant was never consulted, nor did he agree to receiving no payment in respect of his contractual hours' entitlement where no offer of contractual hours was made to him. The claimant was awarded for the failure to pay his wages in lieu of notice and also for unpaid wages.

Practical Lessons

Employers are entitled to ‘lay off’ an employee i.e. request that they stay home or take unpaid leave when there is a temporary period without paid work- so long as the employment contract allows this. Employees can alternatively be placed on ‘short term working’, which may help to avoid redundancies, but again this must be agreed beforehand. Failing that, an attempt to impose short time working on an employee unilaterally will amount to a breach of contract, and likely a repudiatory breach.

Here, the respondent failed to consider triggering the ‘lay off’ period which was contained in the employee’s contract and the tribunal recognised that this should have been done in the circumstances. The respondent’s failure to utilise this contractual provision and its subsequent failure to consider any payment for the employee ultimately cost it.