Twenty-three bus drivers who were docked a day’s pay after being locked out by Bus Vannin management during a strike have had their claim for compensation rejected by the employment tribunal.
A total of 63 drivers are claiming for unfair dismissal in the long-running dispute over changes to their terms and conditions including the loss of paid lunch breaks.
Lawyers for both sides are to identify tests cases for a tribunal hearing to be heard in due course.
But following a pre-hearing review, the tribunal ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear the claim of 23 of the drivers who alleged unlawful deduction of their wages.
The majority of the claims related to the official industrial action on March 6 this year when two two-hour stoppages were organised by the Unite union between 7am to 9am and from 3pm to 5pm.
Union members who were rostered to do a shift that day said they were available to work but were effectively locked out by the management which chose to use relief staff instead for the whole of the day.
One of the Unite drivers, who had claimed for unlawful deduction from pay of £69.74, wrote in his claim form: ‘My employer chose to run a Sunday service and chose not to pay me for any hours at all even though I was available for work at the premises on this day.
‘There were scheduled services on bus runs outside or within the strike action hours on my rota that I could have carried out. I understand the employer is obliged to pay for any hours I am available for outside the industrial action or strike periods. Instead my employer effectively locked me out which I understand to be unlawful and therefore is obliged to pay me for any hours that I was available outside of the strike action periods or the entire day.’
But the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure pointed out that if the Unite drivers had stopped work at the precise moment the strike began and then resumed their job when the stoppage ended, it would have meant buses being abandoned and passengers left stranded.
It said it was ‘wholly impractical’ to rearrange schedules to allow striking bus drivers to resume their work between the stoppages and it had been decided the only reasonable option was to use only the drivers willing to do full duties and run a Sunday service. The department said it was therefore entitled to deduct a full day’s pay from those who took strike action that day.
But the tribunal ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear the claims and directed the 23 claimants instead to the Small Claims Court.
Meanwhile, an employment tribunal claim against Unite lodged by the union’s former regional industrial organiser Steve Salter, who had claimed for unfair dismissal and unlawful deduction from pay, will not now go ahead after the case was settled out of court.
Mr Salter, who went on to become the mastermind behind the Ape Mann adventure park in South Barrule, said he was unable to comment about the case.
