Agreements under duress

Case 2: The facts

Having failed to get an agreement on the introduction of cashless pay, Hepworth Heating sent its employees letters saying that they would be dismissed at a given date unless they agreed to the change. Although most workers replied saying that they did agree, some workers indicated that they were signing "under duress". They then took tribunal claims for unfair dismissal while continuing to work under the new terms.

The ruling

The EAT rejected their claim of duress. By continuing to work the employees had accepted the change. There was no duress in the legal sense. What the employer had proposed had the effect of making the contracts "voidable". In response the workers would have had to take some steps to bring their contracts to an end.

* Hepworth Heating v Akers EAT/846/02