From time to time we will tell you about a Birmingham employment law case we have recently dealt with. This is the story of Jason, a factory worker, and his settlement agreement that followed age discrimination.

Jason, 64 years old, was a production controller in a clothing factory.

Jason was in charge of cutting textiles which produced garments and managing the cutting room operations. Over the course of one year, his employer removed parts of his role, accusing him of not doing his job properly (which wasn’t the case). Jason was asked on several occasions whether he was planning to retire. He wasn’t. Instead of retiring, he had planned to reduce his hours to three days a week on reaching 65. the company have stated they were enquiring as they would need to have a sufficient amount of time to employee a replacement.

The employer had said that they were unsure whether this was going to be possible due to lack of work for Jason and they had asked whether he would reduce his hours to two days a week instead. It was implied that if he didn’t agree to working two days a week, an “alternative route” would be followed. He thought that this was an implicit threat to manage him out of the business.

The employer demoted him, told a client he was on his way out and this caused him a lot of anxiety.

Jason put in a flexible working request when he reached 65, declining the offer to work only two days a week. Out of the blue the employer held a ‘settlement meeting’ with him, asking him to leave and take a £3,000 pay-off.

He felt that this may be cause to resign and claim constructive dismissal, but our page on settlement agreements to see why this might not have been the case. But we advised him that because it was linked to his age, it might be an act of age discrimination.

On our advice, Jason raised a grievance complaining about how he had been treated, claiming he had been forced out of work due his employer’s assumptions about what should happen to employees over 65. This is age discrimination. There is no such thing as forced retirement any more. The grievance was heard and Jason was told that an investigation would be carried out. In the meantime, the employer denied his flexible working request.

Jason took legal action and we wrote to the business accusing them of discriminating.  The grievance outcome denied all his complaints, which is usual.

Jason resigned.

Unfortunately, Jason fell at home whilst gardening due to lack of concentration as a result of being filled with worry over his work situation and was unable to work out his notice.

We helped Jason to bring a claim of unfair constructive dismissal, age-related harassment and age-related discrimination and victimisation. We took the claim to a hearing and the other side settled on the day of the trial for £25,000 to cover his loss of income, personal injury and injury to feelings for age discrimination. Ironically, the matter was tied up with a settlement agreement.

By Emma Bonehill

Image used under cc courtesy of Senorhorst Jahnsen