Company in the wrong?

toopybinoo

Hi, my partner works for a company and was originally taken on as a casual worker for industrial and contract cleaning jobs. when he accepted position he was told he would mainly be based in the same location. after a few weeks they asked him to do industrial jobs, sometimes travelling for 8 hours per day without any payment for travel time. He was then put into another position doing security. He was contracted out by his company to a new company. ie 2 positions, both being paid by same employer.
so for a few weeks he was doing security. he then hurt his back in work and was out certified for the past 2 weeks. he was due back on thurs, and they told him he would be working from monday onwards doing security. they then rang and changed his hours for this week. they then rang again and told him the only work available for his this week was on monday in an industrial job. he has being told by the docs and physio that he can not do any strenious work, he told his employer this, who then said there was no security hours for him as they took on a new guy when he was sick, and that guy needs hours.

So basically, because he was out sick, the position he had is no longer available to him.

Can they do this, sorry for lengthly post, any advice greatly appreciated.

Godge

The problem is that casual workers have little or no protection. Both the part-time and fixed-term acts give little protection to those with less than 12 weeks in a job. The Unfair Dismissals Act gives no protection to those with less than a year.

In short, what they have done is morally wrong but possibly within their legal entitlements.