Tesco has lost a high-profile “fire and rehire” case in the UK’s supreme court over proposals by the supermarket to let some staff go and re-employ them on lower pay.
The dispute with the shopworkers’ union Usdawbegan in 2021 and centred on moves to use firings or the threat of dismissal to remove retention payments awarded years earlier to some workers at distribution centres.
The UK’s highest court ruled that Tesco Stores Ltd could not terminate the employment contracts of staff to stop them receiving the retention payments and then rehire them on new contracts without the top-up.
The case has been closely watched because it raises wider questions about the practice of “fire and rehire” and an employer’s right to terminate a contract by giving notice to the employee and then re-employing them on less generous terms.
A democratically elected one?