Any thoughts would be appreciated as he is only young and he feels that he does not have the support of the union and really feels hard done by to the point where he would be prepared to take to the courts if necessary.
Thanks.
If your cousin has been employed full time for 2 years then he is covered by the unfair dismissals act and cannot be fairly sacked without 1 verbal warning, 2 written warnings and 1 or more meetings to discuss the issues for which the warnings were issued. He can request full company investigations into the alledged incidents etc. All should be spelt out in the company procedures.
Not entirely correct in that in cases of gross misconduct, a company can move straight to dismissal if the situation warrents it. Gross misconduct would normally include such things as theft and assault but could also include such things as a serious breech of Health and Safety rules leaving staff/customers open to injury or worse
Companies are under no obligation to retain poorly performing staff, but if, in 3 months time they deem his performance has not improved, they canthen move to working the individual out the door and then they would go through the verbal/written warning stage.
They asked the shop stewart to sign the letter on behalf of the Union Rep who had been dealing with the issue.
Thanks for the posts,
He is not signing the letter and has told the Shop Stewart not to sign it either. He has told him that he wants to talk to the Branch Secretary when he returns from his holidays as he is still not happy that the underlying issues have not been resolved and that he is being held responsible for the two incidents.
The letter states the following:
We propose that for a period of 3 months we will monitor you competence, general performance, responsibility, and attendance in relation to your employment. During this period we will do all within our power to offer assistance, support and encouragement to enable you to achieve the levels of trust, competence and responsibility required by this company.
If, during that period, we do not see a significant improvement in these areas we will have no alternative but to terminate your employment with xxxxxx. After the 3 month period has expired we will carry out a review to confirm your future status with this company.
As I said the Branch Secretary is on holiday so I am trying to do my best to advise him until he returns. An issue I see is that the company have failed to prove that two incidents were his fault but are continuing to try and get him to be accountable for them. The latter stated the they will monitor attendance even though he has never been warned about his attendance in the past. The letter does not reference any of the companies disciplinary procedures and those procedures have not been mentioned at all in the now 5 weeks that this has been going on. There has been no involvement from the HR representatives in the company.
I would like to know what his options are if he refuses to sign this. Could the company see this a refusal to co-operate and move to dismiss him? Does he have to have the unions support if he does not want to sign it? And are the company at fault for not mentioning/referencing/following it's disciplinary procedures?
Again, any thoughts and advice would be appreciated. I am trying to read up on this but am very busy at the moment myself.
Can you point to cases / legislation to support your statement ??
The Unfair dismissals act allows an employer to justify a dismissal providing they can prove it occurred for a number of reasons. These include the capability and competence of the employee
Competence can be one of the more difficult reasons to prove as the employee can have a number of counter arguements. The employer has to be able to justify what can often be a subjective measurement, the employer must have made the employee aware of the issue(which has happened in this case). The employee can also claim that the reason for the poor performance was not their own ability(or lack of it) but down to such things as lack of company support/training in the job etc
Worth noting as well that a dismissal is deemed to be unfair until the employer proves othersie
The employee is not being sacked. The letter is clearly a warning / improvement letter. Therefore the Unfair Dismissals Acts do not apply because there is no dismissal.
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