Council worker dismissed to prevent him obtaining his pension
A council employee dismissed to prevent him from obtaining his pension is claiming £1m in compensation after winning his Employment Tribunal claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination on the grounds of age.
John Wooster, 50, had been employed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for 33 years when he was made redundant, a few months before he would have benefited from enhanced pension entitlements.
Mr Wooster started working with the council when he was 16 and continued to work his way up the ladder until he was 49 and a half. He claimed that knowing that he would be entitled to his pension and a lump sum if he were made redundant upon reaching the age of 50, the council deliberately refused to redeploy him and dismissed him immediately.
Mr Wooster was on a secondment when he was dismissed. His manager at the time told the Director of the council’s housing management, that he would continue to pay Mr Wooster’s salary up to when he turned 50. The Director replied: “If you are going to pay his salary then you can pay his bloody pension when he is 50. If he goes now, we save the cost of the pension.”
The Tribunal concluded from this that the trigger for the decision to dismiss Wooster was his age, and said that the council’s HR department had “with all the inevitability of a misguided juggernaut” put into motion a process that led to Wooster’s dismissal.
Wooster is claiming a total of £1m compensation for loss of employment until his age of retirement at 65, loss of pension and injury to feelings. The Tribunal found that London Borough of Tower Hamlets had failed to adhere to the statutory dismissal procedure and awarded him a 50% uplift on compensation. The level of the compensation award will be decided at a future hearing.
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