Appeal No.	EAT/1265/97

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 17 December 1997

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE LINDSAY
MR J A SCOULLER
MR G H WRIGHT MBE

ABBEY (TEXTILES) LTD	APPELLANTS

MISS K BURGESS	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

JUDGMENT

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellants	MR JOHN HARRISON
(Representative/Director)

	MR JUSTICE LINDSAY:     We think this matter should go to a full hearing.  It is not for us to frame the question that is best to be argued, but our view is that there is here an arguable point that the Industrial Tribunal was addressing not the proper question, which is whether a reasonable employer could have concluded as this employer did but rather that the Tribunal tended to stray into the area of asking themselves whether they would have acted as the employer did.  In other words, there may be grounds for the not unfamiliar accusation that the Industrial Tribunal substituted its own view for the view of the employer and for the view of what was open to a reasonable employer, objectively so regarded.

	In particular, in dealing with machine-sharing, it is not at all clear that the Tribunal had in mind that if the machine is to be shared, it has to be shared with someone and the fact that Miss Burgess was a good operative and could share any machine does not of itself suggest that machine-sharing difficulties can be overcome because, of course, there is the position of the person with whom she is sharing that would then have to be taken into account.

	Another point is that, so far as concerns attendance at team meetings, the Industrial Tribunal mentions that, after all, people who did not attend the meeting could be given information as to what had happened at the meeting.  But that is looking at team meetings as if the only function of team members is to receive information.  It is, of course, also to pass on information and so there are questions here that might need to be investigated at a full hearing.  Mr Harrison also urges that there were other significant features of team working to which objections were made by the employer but which the Industrial Tribunal does not meet in its reasons.  

	These are questions that are, in our view, worth putting to a full hearing and we will, on that basis, allow the matter to go forward.