The Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) has won a Supreme Court case against Tesco over its plans to “fire and rehire” workers on less favourable terms.
The union took legal action against Tesco after the supermarket proposed firing staff at several distribution centers and rehiring them on reduced pay in 2021. While the High Court initially ruled favour of the union in 2022, Tesco successfully appealed the decision later that year.
Usdaw then brought the case to the Supreme Court, where five justices unanimously ruled today that Tesco should be prevented from dismissing the employees.
Lords Reed, Leggatt, Lloyd-Jones, Burrows, and Lady Simler stated: “Objectively, it is inconceivable that the mutual intention of the parties was that Tesco would retain a unilateral right to terminate the contracts of employees in order to bring retained pay to an end whenever it suited Tesco’s business purposes to do so.
This would have been viewed, objectively, as unrealistic and as flouting industrial common sense by both sides.”
A Tesco spokesperson responded, “We accept the Supreme Court’s judgment.”
