An employer, in giving effect to a client request, was held to have failed in its duties towards a reservist employee when he returned from Afghanistan in the recent case of Leveratt v Mitie Security (London) Ltd .
Mr Leveratt, a member of the Territorial Army, was deployed to Afghanistan for one year's service. At the time he left, he had been employed for two years by a security firm, and was working as a control room manager at a London branch of Barclays Bank plc. As the role had required him to carry out some close-protection duties for the Chairman of Barclays, Barclays paid for Mr Leveratt to undertake the necessary training on the condition that he would not then leave to serve overseas. When he did so, Barclays viewed this act as a betrayal of sorts, and did not want Mr Leveratt to return to work for them. In response to further questions, Barclays also described Mr Leveratt as 'disruptive'. Despite the protestations of a manager at Mitie that it had 'obligations' towards Mr Leveratt, Mitie eventually accepted its customer's position and agreed that Mr Leveratt would not return to Barclays.
Mr Leveratt was accordingly told that he would not be allowed to return to Barclays. He temporarily undertook another role, but refused to accept another long-term position until the Barclays matter was resolved. After a four week consultation period, during which Mitie looked for another position for Mr Leveratt, he was dismissed. He subsequently claimed unfair dismissal.
In finding for Mr Leveratt, the Tribunal rejected Mitie's argument that the dismissal was fair on the basis of 'some other substantial reason' (pressure from a third party). Mitie should have gone further in its communications with Barclays in an effort to get to the bottom of the reason why Barclays did not want Mr Leveratt to return. The Tribunal did not think Mitie had done "everything that [it] reasonably [could] to avoid or mitigate the injustice brought about by the stance of the client".
Best Practice
Although a dismissal as a result of third party pressure can potentially be fair, the employer has a duty to consider whether an injustice has been caused to its employee when deciding whether to dismiss. In this case the employer did try to negotiate with its customer, but (in the eyes of the Tribunal) did not go far enough.
Given the difficulties suppliers of services can face if the client requires them to remove an employee, suppliers should try to build relevant indemnity protection into their outsourcing agreements.
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