Five justices unanimously agreed that Tesco should be blocked from dismissing the staff.
The Supreme Court judges ruled that it was “inconceivable” that both Tesco and the union members intended for the supermarket to have the right to fire workers and rehire them on lower pay “whenever it suited Tesco’s business purposes to do so”.
“This would have been viewed, objectively, as unrealistic and as flouting industrial common sense by both sides,” the judges said in their ruling.
When it offered the retained pay deal at the beginning, Tesco could have stipulated that the deal would end, or that it could fire and rehire, but didn’t, the judges said.
Using the word “permanent” conveys that retained pay is not time-limited “in any way”, they added.
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