employment rights of a worker of under a year

moshpit77

Please tell me if this is in the wrong forum

I'm wondering if anybody can tell me what rights a worker has if he/she has been working for their employer for under a year and gets fired. As far as I can see, under the current employment legislation a worker can only take proceedings for unfair dismissal if they have been working continuously for their employer for over a year (except under exceptional circumstances, i.e. discrimination, equality etc.)

A friend of mine has been working for a certain employer for 8 months. Recently he has been accusing him of not doing his job to the proper standard, which my friend says is lies and he thinks that the boss is trying to justify a reason to fire him because they don't get on too well. Whats to stop the boss making up a reason, firing him, and not having to prove that he is justified in doing this because he knows there can be no case taken against him?

aidan_walsh

Yes it is. You want the Work forum.

gandalf

Moving this to the work forum.

WhiteWashMan

regardless of what the boss thinks the proper standards of the job entails, your friend is still entitled to what is in his contract.
Usually there will be a a dicsiplinary proceedure which must be followed.

you cannot sack someone on the spot unless there is a case of gross misconduct (hitting someone, pornography, racism, drug use, etc)

on the other hand, i find that employees are rarely as innocent as they make out when it comes to this sort of thing

i think your friend ought to wait until fired until he starts thinking of an unfair dismissal law suit, and should probably start thinking about either getting into line (its called managing your manager), or thinking about getting another job.
if his manager does go about dismissing him, then i would expect him to go through the diciplinary proceedure. if he doesnt and just tells him to leave, well, depending on the state of his contract, and his position (permanent, contract, probation etc) then your friend may be entitled to unfair dismissal, or should just chalk it up as a l;earning experience.

if you have further details of your friends situation, it would be more helpful. at the moment, i can only give broad sweeping generalisations

seamus

As WWM says.

Most companies will have a disciplinary proceedings that a manager will have to go through.

If the company has one, then your mate cannot get fired on the spot for not "doing your work to the required standard". Anywhere I've worked, would require a few warnings about the quality of your work before they can fire you.

Generally, someone can only be fired on the spot if their continued employment presents an immediate risk to the company, the employees or the employee himself. So as WWM says, physical abuse, drug use would be included, as would massively expensive cock-ups, etc.

At present I'd say his best bet is to have a proper meeting with his boss to discuss his boss's problem with his work, and to find out how to improve it. No point in being apathetic. More fuel for the fire* if that's what his boss is planning.

* Oh teh pun!

WhiteWashMan

seamus wrote:

More fuel for the fire* if that's what his boss is planning.

* Oh teh pun!

oh!


Burned!


Touché

moshpit77

Thanks for the replies, yeah I know I can only take what he told me as his side of things, he asked me to check up employment law for him and thats all that I could come up with. He doesn't think there's any set disciplinary procedures in this place, other staff before him have just been told there no hours for them anymore, i.e. get lost and don't come back.

WhiteWashMan

well, again, unless more information is provided, i cant give you anything specific.

i am interested in your last post about the 'no more hours'. is he on some sort of rolling contract?
if he is a permanent employee, then in a case like that, its redundency, and that throws up all sorts of legal stuff.
whether or not your friend 'thinks' there is no diciplinary proceedure is a lot different than there actually not being one, so get him to make sure if there is one or not.

to be honest, all that has happened so far is a non formal chat saying that your friends work is not up to scratch.
hardly threatening by any stretch of the imagination. if your friend is the one who has started looking into unfair dismissal after that, then i suspect your friend knows more than he is letting on. i suspect your friend is probably doing an unsatisfactory job, and he knows it.
but thats my assumption from the information presented so far

RicardoSmith

Unsatisfactory job. That can mean anything. Which is why its so vague.