In an employment tribunal hearing that will determine the worker status for Addison Lee taxi drivers, a senior executive admitted to faking a crucial email in the evidence of the London private hire taxi group.
Around 700 Addison Lee drivers have joined the case in order to argue that they should be considered workers and not self-employed contractors. They are entitled to rights like holiday pay and national minimum wage.
Watford Employment Tribunal heard that the company’s claim was partly based on a 2020 directive which stated that drivers would be able to decide their own working hours, and wouldn’t be penalized for refusing to work.
Addison Lee provided written evidence that included an email purportedly dated July 8, 2020, from Patrick Gallagher. Gallagher is Addison Lee’s chief operating officer.
The statement read: “It’s imperative that the Operations team does not impose any bans or restrictions on. . . “If they refuse to accept a job offer, couriers or car drivers will be fired.”
In new written evidence presented at the trial on Tuesday, 29 October, Gallagher, Addison Lee’s operations director Bill Kelly and others said that the email had been fabricated by Kelly four year later.
Kelly and Gallagher said that Gallagher remembered sending an email in September of this year about workers’ rights in 2020 to decide their own work schedules, and asked Kelly to locate it. He was unable, however, to find the email. Kelly then altered an email chain from the year 2020, adding the words Gallagher, and sent it to Gallagher.
Gallagher claimed he didn’t know the email was a fake, but sent it on to Addison Lee’s lawyers for use as evidence at the trial.
Kelly claimed he didn’t know why he faked the email, and that he never intended to use it as evidence at the trial.
Leigh Day, the law firm representing the drivers argued that Addison Lee’s case should be thrown out due to the email and questioned whether the rest of their evidence could be relied upon. The judge didn’t make a decision about this on Tuesday.
Addison Lee, however, said in a press release that the email was an “isolated mistake”, and they had taken immediate steps to rectify the situation and inform all parties involved. The company added that, despite the fact that drivers were not punished for refusing to accept jobs in 2020, this instruction was included in contracts by 2021.
The case was brought after a 2017 employment court ruling that Addison Lee driver were workers. The ruling was upheld in the following year. In 2021, the Court of Appeal refused to allow the company to appeal the decision, citing the landmark Supreme Court case on Uber.
Addison Lee maintains that the ruling of the 2017 Employment Tribunal does not apply to the other 700 or so drivers and, therefore, the claim brought by the drivers to the Employment Tribunal.
Addison Lee has already provided its drivers with benefits such as holiday pay, the London Living Wage, guaranteed for those who work in London, and an industry-leading pension plan.
The Employment Tribunal continues.
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