AA FOUND GUILTY OF UNFAIR DISMISSAL OF SOMERSET SENIOR HOTEL INSPECTOR IN DISPUTE OVER PRIVATE EQUITY CUTS IN PAY AND CONDITIONS
Southampton tribunal found that Jane Wyatt had worked for AA for 30 years with an unblemished work record until she opposed £9,000 cut in her salary.
An Employment Tribunal in Southampton has found that the AA unfairly dismissed GMB member Jane Wyatt, a senior AA hotel inspector in October 2007. Jane Wyatt from Taunton in Somerset had been employed by the AA for thirty years and she was employed in the Hotels Services Division which had thirty-five to forty employees. Jane was responsibly for managing a team of five hotel inspectors.
In the Autumn of 2006 the AA was owned by private equity companies CVC and Premia who had set about a carve up of numbers of employees and the terms and conditions of employment those who remained (see note 2 to editors below). A new manager was appointed to the Hotels Division and he set about cutting the terms and conditions of employment. The new terms and conditions meant a pay cut of up to £9,000 a year in pensionable salary and gave the AA authority to change pay and conditions arrangements in the future without negotiation. These new terms and conditions were opposed by GMB and almost the entire staff including Jane and most of the other senior staff. Jane was quite vocal in her support for GMB’s position and made this clear in an email to staff on the 6th February 2007. For this email she was victimised. The senior management team set about undermining the opposition of the staff to the cuts and eventually imposed them. Jane was isolated, marginalised and dismissed by the AA managers in October 2007.
By this time AA had merged with private equity owned SAGA and a senior manager from SAGA upheld her dismissal. The Employment Tribunal which heard the case during three days in August, one day in September and four days in October 2008 has found that Jane Wyatt was unfairly dismissed. No date has yet been fixed for the damages hearing.
Paul Maloney, GMB National Officer said, “Jane Wyatt is a member of GMB who stood up to the bullying and harassment visited on the workforce of the AA by the private equity owners. She was victimised for her stand and she was the subject of scurrilous and spurious allegations. Her stand has been vindicated by the employment tribunal which has ruled that she was unfairly dismissed by the AA.
GMB have always said that the AA, after it was taken over by private equity, was involved in the biggest act of corporate bullying ever seen in the UK. Jane had thirty years of unblemished service as a hotel inspector with the AA. She was widely respected by her colleagues and by the hotel trade that she served. She was sacked for refusing to accept a pay cut of up to £9,000 per annum and for refusing to give a blank cheque to the AA to cut terms and conditions further if they so wished.
The manner in which she was pushed out the door by the collusion of AA management is still the subject of litigation and GMB is looking at other ways of remedying the damage that Jane and other GMB members suffered at the hands of the AA.”
