In Bateman v ASDA Stores Ltd [EAT/0221/09], ASDA’s staff handbook contained incorporated terms of its employees’ pay and conditions of employment.
The EAT upheld the tribunal’s decision that the staff handbook allowed ASDA to impose a new pay structure on some of its employees without their agreement.
The staff handbook stated that:
“The Company reserves the right to review, revise, amend or replace the contents of this handbook, and introduce new policies from time to time reflecting the changing needs of the business and to comply with new legislation.”
The tribunal accepted that ASDA had imposed the new pay structure on the employees due to its changing business needs. The tribunal added that ASDA did not act capriciously; arbitrarily; or in any way which breached the employee’s trust and confidence, e.g. the employees were consulted and given several months’ notice of the new pay structure.
3 comments:
I would treat this case with caution. Certainty is an essential ingredient for the formation of a legal binding contract. It may be argued that a contract has no certainty if it has an ‘ASDA variation clause’.
For example, ASDA’s right to unilaterally vary the terms of employment due to ‘changing business needs’ is too wide and ambiguous to give the contract any certainty.
Good point. It does not appear that it was argued before the tribunal.
Hopefully, the ‘ASDA clause’ does not mean that an employer can vary the contract whenever it likes under the pretence of a ‘changing business need’. Tribunals should look at whether the variation was made due to a genuine ‘changing business need’.
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