Employment

The wording of s 28(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 did not preclude an agreed temporary variation constituting a change to an employee’s normal working hours so as to prevent the award of a guarantee payment merely because the variation was temporary. The focus had to be on the periods when the employees were “normally” required to work, and not when they were “permanently” required to work. That entailed asking what were the normal requirements and the wording showed that the mere fact that an arrangement was not permanent was not conclusive.