EAT Rules Against Royal Mail Worker in Trade Union Activity Dismissal Appeal
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has dismissed a worker's appeal, ruling that offensive WhatsApp messages were not protected as trade union activity.
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The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has dismissed an appeal brought by a former Royal Mail delivery driver, Mr M Young, who claimed his dismissal for gross misconduct was automatically unfair. The case centred on whether messages posted in a trade union WhatsApp group during an industrial dispute fell under the legal protections afforded to trade union activities.
Background of the Dispute
Mr Young was dismissed in October 2022 following his participation in a CWU-organised WhatsApp group. He had shared two specific messages during a period of industrial unrest. The first message stated "Fuck Royal Mail," while the second suggested that colleagues should "choose sides" or risk having their car blown up. Although the claimant argued the second message was intended as a joke, a trainee manager reported feeling genuinely threatened and intimidated.
Royal Mail investigated the posts and concluded they constituted gross misconduct under company social media and conduct policies. Mr Young was subsequently dismissed, leading him to bring a claim of unfair dismissal under section 152 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
Tribunal Findings
The original Employment Tribunal (ET) found that the messages did not constitute participation in trade union activities. The judge held that the forum of the message did not determine the nature of the act. While the tribunal acknowledged that union activity should not be narrowly defined, it ruled that threatening or abusive language remains distinct from protected union objectives, such as balloting or industrial action.
The EAT Ruling
In his judgment, His Honour Judge Beard upheld the initial decision, stating that the ET had correctly applied the law. The EAT emphasised that determining whether conduct amounts to trade union activity is a fact sensitive evaluative exercise for the first instance tribunal. The judge noted that the ET was entitled to conclude that the claimant's conduct was separable from protected activity and that no material error of law had been committed.
The appeal attempted to argue that the tribunal had failed to apply a specific threshold for protected activity. However, the EAT clarified that such legal tests are not freestanding constraints. Instead, the focus remains on whether the conduct in question is genuinely separable from trade union aims, a matter which the original tribunal had properly addressed.
Read the entire judgment here: M Young v Royal Mail Group Ltd [2026] EAT 93
