Changing Terms of Employment

North Lanarkshire Council v Cowan – EAT – 06/08

The Employment Tribunal held that where an employer proposes a package of interrelated measures affecting employment, employees cannot cherry pick which terms to accept and which to reject.   In the absence of agreement in respect of the whole package of measures, the proposed variations will be unilateral (and ineffective) and the original terms will remain.

Robinson v Tescom Corporation – EAT – 8/3/08

If an employee does not agree with proposed changes to their employment and if the employee does not want to resign, he/she can either agree to work the new terms under protest or refuse to work under the new contract – the employee cannot combine both options as happened in this case.

In this case the Employment Appeal Tribunal found that an employee who agreed to work under new terms of employment under protest but subsequently insisted on working on his old terms of employment had not been unfairly dismissed. Having agreed to work the new terms, the employee could not subsequently refuse to do so. 

Restrictive Covenants

WRN Limited v Ayris – High Court – 21/5/08

The High Court found that a restriction in an employment contract preventing an employee from having contact (after leaving the employment) with any of the employer’s customers was too wide. The clause should have been restricted to the customers the employee dealt with. The case is also a reminder that the reasonableness of post termination restrictions will be considered with reference to the employee’s job title at the date of entering into them and will not take into account any subsequent promotions.