Firefighters who were forced to use holidays and lieu time while shielding due to Covid have lost their bid for compensation – despite winning their case.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) was found to have discriminated against staff with health conditions in a move that was completely at odds with government advice.
An initial employment tribunal found that the service had breached equality legislation, but awarded no compensation to the firefighters involved.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU), who raised the legal action on behalf of members, went on to seek a reconsideration of the compensation decision – claiming that it was “bizarre” - but that has also now been rejected.
The tribunal ruled that it could not make an award as no evidence had been presented on the redress sought by the employees.
In a written decision on the case, employment judge David Hoey said: “It was for the claimants to prove their loss, and they failed to do so.”
He added: “In all the circumstances it is not necessary in the interests of justice to reconsider the judgment that was issued in this case… the application to reconsider our decision is refused.”
The tribunal heard that around 150 SFRS workers who could not perform their roles from home were asked to shield during lockdown.
A judgment on the case states: “All staff who required to shield who could not work from home required to use their accrued annual leave and TOIL before being paid special leave to ensure their time spent at home (and not working) was paid.”
A group of eight employees raised claims for disability discrimination, with judge Hoey ruling that there was “unfavourable treatment (removal of choice and flexibility with regard to TOIL and accrued leave) because of something arising in consequence of a disability”.
However, the judge added that there was an “absence of evidence” showing what was lost by the claimants and it was therefore not “just or equitable” to award any compensation.
A further group who were forced to use annual leave and TOIL to cover time off for caring responsibilities tried to claim that this was sex discrimination, however this was rejected by the tribunal.
Scottish Government advice was that shielders should not lose out on “future entitlements like holiday and accrued time”.
At the time of the initial decision in the case, Jillian Merchant, of Thompsons Solicitors, who represented the claimants, said the case was one of the first Covid-19 discrimination claims to reach the courts.
She said: “Disabled workers should not be punished for following Scottish Government guidance.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel