Two former employees of union giant Trade Union Congress were unfairly dismissed, a Tribunal ruled, as both men were awarded financial compensation.
Darren Lewis and Greg Lepiarz brought claims of unfair dismissal and breach of contract against Trade Union Congress to the Employment Tribunal. In addition, Lewis, who is Black British, brought a separate claim of direct race discrimination and holiday pay.
Lewis has been employed with the union since 2001 and has served as a departmental secretary. Lepiarz started working for the union as a conference assistant in 2018.
Trade Union Congress suspends employees
The disciplinary charges against the men involved the website for Newham Trades Council (NTC), one of the union’s stakeholders.
Lepiarz created the website for the NTC, and there were discussions about payment for his time and upkeep of the site.
The NTC general secretary made a payment of £320 to Lepiarz’s bank account, however, there were some confusions about whether this had in fact been paid. Lepiarz said he did not believe the sum had been received by him, as the judgment noted there were problems with the banking website in Summer 2021.
After some discussion, the NTC general secretary raised concerns to the Trade Union Congress about the website. She also reported issues around the money, noting that she thought the website would have been free.
However, the union swiftly started disciplinary proceedings, and the men were suspended.
After an investigation, the union charged Lepiarz with 1) providing an IT service to NTC and charging them for this service; 2) giving a false impression that the service was being offered by the TUC to trades councils; 3) using his TUC email account to provide the service and communicate.
Lewis was charged with facilitating him to provide IT services to NTC, which he charged them for. Both men were dismissed. The dismissal letter was signed and authorised by Paul Nowak, now union general secretary.
Dismissal claims well-founded and upheld
The men brought the case to the Tribunal, which decided after a long hearing that Lewis and Lepiarz’s unfair dismissal claims were well-founded and upheld.
Employment Judge Joffe noted that there was no chance that the claimants would have been fairly dismissed in any event.
However, the Tribunal did find that the claimants contributed to their dismissals by blameworthy conduct due to some tones in email exchanges. The Tribunal ruled to reduce the compensatory award payable
to the men by 15 per cent for Lepiarz and 20 per cent for Lewis.
Lewis’ gross pay was reduced due to sickness throughout the internal investigation. The Tribunal ordered that the union to pay Lewis £1,060.80 for unpaid sick pay for July and August 2022 and £3,005.95 for unpaid holiday pay.
However, Lewis’ claim of direct race discrimination was not upheld and was dismissed.
Commenting on the matter, their lawyer Gerard Airey, from Kilgannon and Partners said: “Darren and Greg are staunch trade unionists. They have been put through a dreadful experience, badly let down and unfairly dismissed by the main body that advocates their protection. The findings that the TUC failed to investigate matters properly and breached the ACAS Code are startling as a result.”
A TUC spokesperson said: “The TUC takes its responsibilities as an employer seriously. We will be considering this judgment fully before deciding on our next steps, and reviewing our internal processes and how they are applied.”