The People Bulletin

It’s bad enough to lose your job with no warning, but to lose it because of sins of predecessors occurring almost ten years before you got there must be pretty galling.

The final issue of The News of the World was published on Sunday 10 July and over 200 staff at the paper were told the newspaper was closing the previous Wednesday as a result of the phone hacking scandal.  Many are now taking legal action and believe they were being made scapegoats for the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, who clung on for a week after the closure announcement before eventually tendering her resignation.

Legal experts believe that the 168 year-old newspaper could end up with a £14m bill as a result of unfair dismissal claims because of what could be an award by an employment tribunal of £7000 if each.

A report in The Times on Saturday, 16 July confirmed that around 30 journalists are understood to have spoken to Silverman Sherliker, a City law firm, ‘about the possibility of launching a group action against the paper’s owners for “stigma damages”, in other words, the phone-hacking activities of erstwhile employees on the paper have put them at ‘a serious disadvantage’ when it comes to finding new work.

Richard Smith, an HR consultant at Croner explains:

1. A firm cannot make hundreds of people redundant without consultation; there appears to be a clear breach of the provisions of the relevant legislation in this situation.
2. There is a great danger of claims for unfair dismissal unless alternative work is being offered within the company.
3. If, as is rumoured, a new Sunday newspaper will take the place of the News of the World from News International, there is a possibility that this may be subject to a TUPE transfer and will therefore give staff rights to transfer.

“Leaving aside the law, the process of informing employees of the closure has been brutal and lacked best practice. It also brings into play other aspects of corporate governance covered by UK legislation.

“If it proves to be true that News of the World journalists have paid bribes to obtain information, good financial management of a company should have made it difficult to conduct business in this way. Supervision of such activity is required under the Bribery Act and, if there is no proper system in place, senior managers can be liable for criminal offences. Employers should ensure that proper standards are known and enforced in any business by communication, training and dealing with transgressors.”

The National Union of Journalists parliamentary group tabled a motion on 12 July condemning the sacking of the 200 journalists and recommending the referral of the BSkyB acquisition to the Competition Commission (Rupert Murdoch withdrew his bid shortly afterwards).[1]  A comment in the Guardian on 8 July suggested that if News International had recognised the union, the NUJ’s ethics policy could have prevented the scandal from happening in the first place.[2]

[1] www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-11/2054

[2] www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/nuj-news-of-the-world