UPDATE- On Monday, July 1, 2024, a new article was published which reports that Mr Valimulla was successful in an employment appeal linked to the below story, click here to read it.

A CHARITY worker - whose role was decimated by the pandemic - has lost a dismissal battle with his former employers.

Zubair Valimulla worked as a masjid liaison officer for the Al-Khair Foundation, an emergency relief charity which has offices in Derby Street, Daubhill.

His role mainly involved fundraising in the community and the work would take him into public and private schools, an employment tribunal heard.

But because of lockdown provisions, Mr Valimulla was placed on furlough, under the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme, for at least four months, the Manchester hearing was told.

Bosses at Al-Khair announced they were set to undergo a restructuring process, prompted by the pandemic, in August 2020, which resulted in Mr Valimulla being issued with a redundancy notice. Nine jobs across the charity were eventually lost.

The tribunal was told that, when schools returned that September, Mr Valimulla believed he would be able to resume his work and fundraising activites.

But Employment Judge Martin noted that his employers were of the opinion that while mosques were open, this was only for prayer purposes and did not allow for the worker’s previous fundraising work to take place.

Several consultation meetings took place, with Mr Valimulla, resulting eventually in his dismissal, to take effect from October 31.

Mr Valimulla, in his unfair dismissal claim, alleged he had been made redundant as he failed to back management in a dispute with his then-line manager.

But Judge Martin, while accepting there was an internal dispute between those parties, dismissed this as a possible cause for the redundancy.

Rejecting Mr Valimulla’s claim, Judge Martin added: “This was a small employer with 40 full-time staff. It did not have unlimited resources. Had the claimant been retained, there was a cost to the respondent, even under the CJRS.

“The decisions taken and the process followed which resulted in the claimant’s employment being terminated were within the range of reasonable responses which an employer could take, particularly during the pandemic.”