Restraint of trade - possibly?

BattleCorp

I have a scenario I'd like opinions on or maybe a pointer into the right direction to find out more information. Thanks.

"John" works for "Company x" as a forklift driver and they have sent him on(paid for) many forklift courses over the years.

"John" decides to leave "Company x" and seek other employment.

"Company x" won't give "John" copies of his current forklift certificates when he requests them.

There are no contracts/agreements/restrictions in place relating to where "John" can work when he ceases employment and there were no contracts/agreements/restrictions in place when "John" undertook the forklift training.

Here is my question. Is this restraint of trade. "John" needs to get copies of his certs to apply for other jobs but the company refuse to give him copies therefore stopping him from gaining employment as a forklift driver.

If this query is against the forum charter, then please point me in the right direction for further info.

Thanks.

krd

John can just apply for jobs claiming he has the forklift certificates - if he's particularly worried, he can call the issuing authority and ask them to re-issue the certificates, and then John will have the certificates.

Milk & Honey

John can make a data protection Act request of his employer and seek copies of all data held on him.

Farcear

Milk & Honey wrote: »

John can make a data protection Act request of his employer and seek copies of all data held on him.

I was just thinking what sort of malicious (but valid!) redactions such an employer could make to the data before sending though.

coylemj

If company 'x' paid for the forklift courses then couldn't they validly claim to own the actual certs, even if they obviously have no intrinsic value to anyone other than John?

As the certs. are pieces of paper and not electronic data, do the provisions of the Data Protection Act apply in this case?

Victor

coylemj wrote: »

As the certs. are pieces of paper and not electronic data, do the provisions of the Data Protection Act apply in this case?

Of course the Data Protection Act applies.

BattleCorp

krd wrote: »

John can just apply for jobs claiming he has the forklift certificates - if he's particularly worried, he can call the issuing authority and ask them to re-issue the certificates, and then John will have the certificates.

The issuing authority had a contract between themselves and "John's" employer to carry out the training. The would not be obliged to had over the certs to John as he is a third party, or am I totally wrong in my thinking here???

gizmo555

Victor wrote: »

coylemj wrote: »

As the certs. are pieces of paper and not electronic data, do the provisions of the Data Protection Act apply in this case?

Of course the Data Protection Act applies.

Not necessarily. The Data Protection Acts only cover paper-based data where that data is filed as part of a structured filing system.

See here for more.

BattleCorp wrote: »

The issuing authority had a contract between themselves and "John's" employer to carry out the training. The would not be obliged to had over the certs to John as he is a third party, or am I totally wrong in my thinking here???

The issuing authority is subject to the Data Protection Acts in just the same way as the employer - John could submit an access request to them too.

Victor

gizmo555 wrote: »

Not necessarily. The Data Protection Acts only cover paper-based data where that data is filed as part of a structured filing system.

And surely employee HR files and the forklift safety files which would have copies of these certs are structured filing systems?

gizmo555

Victor wrote: »

And surely employee HR files and the forklift safety files which would have copies of these certs are structured filing systems?

You are assuming there are such things as "forklift safety files" in the company concerned. There may well be, in which case the data in them is subject to the Acts.

The general point stands though - not all paper-based personal data is covered by the acts.