Rolling contract - A scenario

antodeco

Hi all,
Discussion going on here in the office and I thought I would ask the same question here!

If somebody is on a contract, that happens to be renewed at the end of each date, and the current one ends on date X, how much notice is required by the employer to let them know that its being renewed (I assume the assumption is that without notice it is to be terminated?) or by the employee that they dont want to take a renewal? Similarly, if date X is today, and the employee was given no notice, could the employee finish today, with the assumption of the natural end of contract?

Hope I explained it ok!

Thanks

Ray Palmer

You ask your boss. Not uncommon for a contract end date to be forgotten.

Technically the job is over on date X unless something else is stated. There is no obligation for the employer to give notice if it is being renewed it is just a polite thing to do. It also means nothing without a signed contract.

I was told I would be renewed but 3 days before I was to be renewed they changed their mind due to budgets. This was after a few weeks of them delaying to give me the contract. Rightly annoyed but nothing I could really do.

Without a contract you don't have a job

antodeco

Interesting! Sorry to hear about that. Many employers seem to be not extending contracts these days.

On the flip of that, if they do offer a contract extension on the day your current contract expires, you can reject it and just finish on that day?

Mrs OBumble

antodeco wrote: »

On the flip of that, if they do offer a contract extension on the day your current contract expires, you can reject it and just finish on that day?

Of course you can: without a contract, there is no job.

But it might not be a smart thing to do if you ever want to use the boss as a reference.

antodeco

Ah of course but it's just a discussion we were having!

They were saying that you have to stay if you get a contract extension and I was saying that you don't need to accept the contract extension if you don't want!

tatli_lokma

Are (were) you on contract as a sub-contracter or as a PAYE employee?

If you are a PAYE worker, on a fixed-term contract, which has been renewed more than once you might be interested in the following (in particular the part I have highlighted in bold):

citizensinformation.ie wrote:

Employees may not be employed on a series of fixed-term contracts indefinitely. There are 2 possible situations where this arises as follows:

•If an employee whose employment started before 14 July 2003 has completed 3 years’ continuous service as a fixed-term employee, the employer may renew their fixed-term contract only once for a period of no more than 1 year.
•If an employee whose employment started after 14 July 2003 has been employed on 2 or more continuous fixed-term contracts, the total duration of those contracts may not exceed 4 years.

After this, if the employer wishes to renew the employee’s contract, it must be an open-ended contract unless there are objective grounds justifying the renewal of the contract for a fixed term only.

The Unfair Dismissal Acts 1977–2007 contain a provision aimed at ensuring that successive temporary contracts are not used in order to avoid that legislation. Where a fixed-term or specified-purpose contract expires and the individual is re-employed within 3 months, the individual is deemed to have continuous service.

Therefore, even where an employer excludes the unfair dismissals legislation in the manner described above, a Rights Commissioner or the Employment Appeals Tribunal will consider whether the use of such contracts was wholly or partly to avoid the employee having the protection of the unfair dismissals legislation. If it is considered that this was the case and the contracts were not separated by more than 3 months and the job was at least similar, then the case can be dealt with as if there was continuous employment and the employer will be required to justify the dismissal in the normal manner.

If you bear in mind the provision under the Unfair dismissals act, and the employer wishes to renew a contract, it is deemed good practice to at least observe the minimum notice periods or better yet to give at least one month's notice to a contracted worker if you intend for the contract to end. Similarly if you intend on the contract being renewed with another fixed term contract, you should give ample notice of this and specify why the contract has been renewed with another fixed term rather than being made open ended.

Although I have not been able to find something concrete in law, general legal advice we have received from more than once source has advised that if a fixed term contract employee works one day over the end of the contract without any form of notice being served then by allowing them to work on that one day extra you have defacto accepted them as a permanent employee. This advice was given by several legal advisors we consulted and I believe it stems from decisions in EAT.