Employment law and unfair dismissal

I agree there should be more protection, all was well for me for the first eight months, then the bullying started my manager told me I would be the most hated person in the office, I was then blamed for an engineer ringing into work stating he was sick, I passed the message on, then got an email from her stating they should ask for management she only sits across the room from me, surley the engineer should have asked for the manager. At the end of the week I got suspended for gross misconduct, I am a timid person and have cried lots over this & has affected my health. cannot name everything that I have been bullyed for even keeping my head down I still get humiliated. I have now put in a grievance but wont stand a chance because of my lengh of service. THIS IS WRONG I am a female living on my own with a mortgage so the stress is awful. Engineers are supporting me & have offered to back me up. There is a lot of sickness in the company which makes my job impossible to fulfill because of the lack of staff

I've just been dismissed from my job like this too (29th Jan). I've had appraisals leading up to this date saying how well I've been doing and on a regular basis been praised for my work. Just the same as you, on the Friday at 4.15pm I was taken into the boardroom and told I was being dismissed for my 'inability to interact with my colleagues'. I have 11 emails from the said 13 colleagues displaying their upset and disgust that this happened. I wrote an appeal to the employer, but was refused, in spite of my evidence.
I too approached ACAS and the CAB to be told that because in the eyes of the law I was 3 days off my 12 months of service there's nothing I can do about it.
I have started a campaign on facebook to give employees who have served under 12 month rights as well, not sure how far I'll get but I'm going to give it a fair go. I feel that if you can prove that you have been unfairly dismissed you should be able to do something about it...particularly with the climate the way it is. If you're on facebook and wish to join the campaign, it is titled "Everyone should have the right to claim for unfair dismissal'.

Some of these comments are a joke. Employees have far more rights than they did a few years ago and to the person who claims the UK is going downhill, feel free to go live in another country. It really isn't that difficult.

As both an employer and an employee, I find my loyalties divided on this subject. I sympathise with the initial poster of this thread because if you are indeed an honest, trustworthy and hard-working individual there is no reason you should be dismissed. Unfortunately there are a small pocket of companies and employers who abuse this rule. Take the positives: if you have all the above qualities you will have no problem finding another job.

I've found this rule to be very useful dismissing new employees who let you down and simply don't follow the rules. Those who have been dismissed in this regard have no excuses as far as I'm concerned.

My employer has dismissed me for no good reason three weeks before the 12 months were up! I have only just had a pay rise. How is this fair? Can I appeal this??

andrewthornton

The Andrew Thornton from Suffolk?? If it is this is Liam.

If this was France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium etc. etc. you would have vastly more rights. As it is you have little more rights in this country as a indigenous person and very probably much less than an illegal immigrant. Face it your employers here are little more than gangmasters exploiting every little loophole in the law. You're nothing but a coolie nowadays when it comes to employment. Remember the days of indentured labour [it still operates in the USA].

Remember the casual labour employment system in the dock. The pay was low and a docker could never get a steady income under the casual system that was operated. Men would turn up each morning at the docks in the hope of work and wait in one of the many stands along the docks, waiting for the foreman or chargehand to arrive. The foreman would then select the men he wanted and offer them a minimum of half a day’s work. The foremen would often have their favourite workers, to whom they would offer more work.

Employees do not have enough rights. Small businesses struggling and who cannot afford to pay proper wages should go under. If you want to hire other people pay them a living wage and offer them proper conditions.

Employees have enough rights, where do people think employers can get money to pay redundancy as it is? A small business struggling doesn't have any money, it can't be just summoned up out of thin air. Employees need to get real.

Before the first year of employment is up, you can be sacked from your job, you have no rights of employment at all.

Except under the DDA - Disability Discrimination Act. If, say, you can prove that you have a qualifying disability and that the sacking was discriminatory under the DDA, then you will have a case of Disability Discrimination. You do not have to be registered disabled to qualify, nor do you have to be receiving Disability Living Allowance. I was sacked from a job because of an accident I had, and I qualified for disability discrimination simply because I was temporarily disabled due to the accident.

I would simply ignore the "employee debt" as there is no chance in hell they can legally pursue it. Put them down to experience and tell everyone you know never to work for them or buy their products/services. If they treat employees like this, God knows how they treat customers!

I feel sorry for you, and the last posters sum it up very well. Only possible things I can think of are adjustments for NI, taxes, or some other expense. This shouldn't happen but you never know with some company's creative accounting. I would certainly ask for a detailed breakdown of the costs.

However, I'm on the flip side of the coin saddled with the same laws. I want to get rid of somebody because they are a waste of space but I can't because they haven't done anything specifically wrong to warrant verbal or written warnings. They are just incapable of doing their job properly. And it's not a job where targets and deadlines can be met, it's simply IT support for a 35 person company. It's not hard to do (I did it part time for 5 years when we were 25 strong but was moved into management, so we stupidly employed this cretin to do IT).

Oh, one other thing in case they try it on you, if they dismiss YOU then THEY cannot claim any money back from THEM sending YOU on a training course. (Conversely, if you left of your own accord then the company usually has a right to claim back any training expenses for recent training)

I had exactly the same problem as the poster. And it was very scary that one year rule (3 more months to go!) I also agree with the two other comments. My personal opinion is this, this country has died, the last one out is a rotten egg!!

It's not even that though, you have NO RIGHTS if you have been working for a company for less than a year NONE AT ALL.

"I would receive pay for my notice period of one week."

They have timed this very, very carefully.

Presumably up to this moment you have already received all the pay you were due, for all the weeks you have already served?

They are getting rid of you with one week's notice. Cheap!

£250 was your weekly pay, wasn't it?

The holiday year ran from January to January didn't it?

You have already taken more holiday than you have accumulated in 2009? You owe -5.26 days which comes to £442???

-5.26 days @ £250 per week [5 working days] = -£260

Their arithmetic is seriously wrong. Get them to spell it out literally in detail. HR representatives are as thick as sheite!

You are victim of the employment law in this country, which stinks! It stinks to high heaven. Our MPs and laws are a complete waste of space.