Stress At Work & Rights of Worker

I

IrishGunner

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What are the regulations in relation to Stress at work? It’s in relation to a worker who has taken off first 4 months previously but is back in work over a year. They have recently suffered it again and were off for 2 weeks.
Then when they rang they where told that they where going to be demoted. They are not a manager but they are not an admin. The person wanted to check with the Citizen Advise Bureau are these the correct people? Also they feel that a demotion would be very demoralising on them and may cause them to leave. They feel with the growth of the company and business that more work has come in but no new staff have been taken on thus the increase in stress

What are their rights?
 
Is your friend a member of a trade union?

The following link is from Impact and might be a good starting point.

[broken link removed]

Employers are legally obliged to control workplace stress, just as they must control any other workplace health hazard. The 1989 Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act obliges them to identify and safeguard against all risks to health and safety. All places of work must have a safety programme written down in a safety statement. The potential hazard of stress must be addressed when compiling a safety statement.
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Hi

They are not in a Union as its an office job in a big company that 'dont have' unions

Any ideas on rights ? Have they the authority to demote using this as an excuse ?
 
Hi,

I would have thought it would be necessary for the company to demote such an employee in a competitive environment.
Stress is far too much of a catch all cop out for malingerers. I am not suggesting the the person in this case is malingering but from an employers point of view it would not be possible to survive where an inordinate number of employees were to take stress as a valid reason for absenteeism.
In any case an employer can terminate an employment contract where the person employed in unable to do the job he/she is contracted to do. Being on regular or extended sick leave through stress would make the employee fall into such a category.

Rujib
 
Hi

Well you can rest assure they are not a malingerers.They have the certs to prove anxiety They have suggested to management that they do not have adequate staff for the job. There was over 16 hours overtime in one month where there should be less than 5. Also no lunch breaks. Any person would be stressed out with that. They feel the company are trying to undermine them and trying to 'force' them out. They are capable of doing the job but the job has expanded to include other duties and no extra help has been offered, They did mention this. They feel a demotion would undermine them and not help?
 
Hi IG,

I googled for stress at work and got this interesting article Stress at Work and the (UK) Law.

Increasingly, people are taking employers to court to claim compensation for damage to their health caused by stress.
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I think you might have two questions:

1/ How does a non unionised workforce deal with a overly stressfull work environment?

2/ What are the circumstances under which an employer can be demote an employee?

I suggest that the answer to the first question lies in the Health and Safety Legislation and the answer to the second lies in the Employment Rights Leglistation mentioned above.

ajapale
 
How many other people in the same environment have suffered from stress to such an extent that it requires months of leave?
If this is common in this office should it be the Health and Safety inspectors that are called in?
16 hours of overtime in a month is bugger all. If that's a source of stress then your friend should ask them self if they are able to cope in a normal working environment.
As Rujib pointed out the niceties of labour law are all very well but the company has to survive within the environment it finds itself. If the industry norm is a stressful environment with long hours then that's the level that the company has to work at to survive. That's international competition for you.
If one of my employees took four months off with stress I would do everything I could to get rid of them as they would be endangering the jobs of all those around them.
 
16 hours overtime in a month sometimes I would work 16 hours overtime in a week. I work in IT and near completion dates it would not be unusual work 12 hour days for 1-2 weeks

tell this person to join the real world
 
Well thank god I dont work for you. If you go to the H&S website you will see the effects of stress on the modern office. At the end of the day the company only look after themselves but they do have certain obligations to adhere to.

Also they may take into account constructive dismissal and judging by your comments you may end up in court yourself

I would rather you give advise and not just a rant
 
It is somewhat concerning that some of the posters above take such a dim view of stress-related illness and appear to question it's validity as a medical condition. Irrespective of your views, employees rights in Ireland are protected by law.

Where an employee has more than 1 year's continuous service, they are protected under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 - 2001. Dismissal of such employees are unfair unless there are substantive grounds for their dismissal. One of these grounds is where the dismissal is due to the incapability of the employee to do the work they were employed to do. You should also be aware (particularly those of you who are employers) that even if an employee doesn't have the required continuous service required under the Unfair Dismissals Acts, they may still be protected under the Employment Equality Acts 1998 - 2004.

I could go on at length to explain all the various issues here, but I'll just end on the following. If an employee is suffering from a mental health/psychiatric illness triggered by stress, the appropriate way to deal with their return to work, could be to introduce a phased return to work or a modification of the employees duties.

It was suggested in the question - the employee has been notified of a demotion. I suggest the employer is on very dodgy ground here. Remember -
(a) changes to a contract of employment must be by agreement between employer and employee - unilateral changes are not allowed by the law. The Courts in addition take a dim view of such breaches of contract.
(b) if this employee then leaves because of what occurred - the employee may have a case against the employer for constructive dismissal
(c) it could be argued that this employee is being penalised (i.e., they are suffering a demotion) and are thereby being discriminated against for having a stress-related illness. They may have very strong grounds for a case under Equality legislation.

On a final note - I would strongly advise this employee (and indeed employer) seek legal advice before proceeding any further. Staff in your nearest Citizen Information Centre may be useful to explain the various procedures in terms of taking a case to the Labour Court but they are generally not qualified to offer specific legal advice to customers.

Hope this helps.
 
Irish Gunner,

I must say I agree with Armitage. I work for a US manufacturing multinational, and would consider 16 hours overtime in a month to be bone idle. We have to compete on the world stage against competitors in low cost countries. If we decide to get "all stressed out" we have our lunch eaten by the competition, whilst we are in bed on foot of doctors cert.

It's tough, but it is great to have a real competitive job.

You know, I always think that the time of the year that we all hear most about stress is at Easter when the teachers unions have their conferences. They all sit around for a week and complain about their stressed filled lives and jobs.

Makes me sick to be honest. We all have stress for petes sake, but that dose not mean we can slink off to the doctor and get a cert to stay off work for a week or 6 weeks.

Make no mistake, stress is a cop out for people who do not want to put their shoulders to the wheel.
 
CMCR,

Thanks for yet another very good post in reply to the question concerning employees rights and work related stress.


Armitage, Purple and Rujib.

May I respectfully ask that you post general observations and rants in the LOS forum. The strict "question and answer" format has served us well in this "Careers and Employment" section over the last few years and I would like to see it build into a useful resource for employees, employers, students and unemployed people in time.

Thanks,

ajapale
 
ajapale said:
CMCR,

Thanks for yet another very good post in reply to the question concerning employees rights and work related stress.

Armitage, Purple and Rujib.

May I respectfully ask that you post general observations and rants in the LOS forum. The strict "question and answer" format has served us well in this "Careers and Employment" section over the last few years and I would like to see it build into a useful resource for employees, employers, students and unemployed people in time.

Thanks,

ajapale
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I must also agree with this

Thank you for the genuine replies
 
Ajapale,

Ok no problem. I do not agree that I was ranting however. I gave a firmly held view.

Rgds
 
The company said that they will take them back as a junior and not a senior and that when they come back in they will discuss it. The person in question feels that by going in they are accepting their terms. They also
feel that the duties of a junior do not deviate that much from the work of a senior. They feel that the company are not addressing the 'real' problem and that they need more staff or delegate the work out. They feel that down the line the same 'excessive overtime and no lunch issue' will arise again They dont want to mention the 'legal' obligations of the company but feel they are merely brushing the issue under the carpet
They did mention that work has increased and thus the reason for the extra stress but where told that management dont feel this
They where told by management that the employee is only concerned by what other people think in relation to 'status' However the employee feels that they have worked in the company over 9 years and they would feel a sense of being 'undermined'
 
To re-iterate my previous message - this company (in my opinion) are proposing a significant change to the employee's terms and conditions of employment, without the permission of the employee. Again - such changes may only be implemented by agreement and the law is there to protect them. There are other fundamental issues this employee needs to consider:

(a) Given they are to be 'demoted' without their agreement, what implications will this have for their pay, annual leave, pension (if any) and other entitlements?

(b) What exactly will the nature of their new job (should they accept it) be and career-wise how will this affect them in the long-term?

It may be worth noting, in February 2005 there was a landmark decision by the Labour Court where an employee was awarded €57,900 where they were found to have been discriminated against by their employer, on the basis of a psychiatric illness (that included stress). You can read about this decision here:
http://www.equality.ie/index.asp?locID=135&docID=236

Again - I reiterate this employee should seek legal advice before making any decision or agreeing to anything. Given they have been employed by this employer for 9 years, they will be covered by unfair dismissals legislation.

If contracting a solicitor might seem too costly (and it doesn't have to be), the employee could go along to their nearest Free Legal Advice (FLAC) evening where qualified barristers and solicitors give legal advice (FREE OF CHARGE). You don't have to fill out any forms, give any personal information and all advice is in confidence.

Staff in your nearest Citizens Information Centre can advise on when the next Free Legal Advice evening will be held.
 
Thank You CMCR for the advice

There is no change in their holiday / pay bonuses etc but they feel that that for any future opportunities would be limited, due to the 'demotion'
Not that they know of as with the promotion there was no increase in wages due to a consulting suvey going on re salarys??
So would there be a change in T&C ??

The case has some interesting reading

They are happy in their job and dont want to mention legal threats, for fear of reprocussions, but then again its within their rights

They just felt if they did return that is a indication that they are accepting the new terms
 
"May I respectfully ask that you post general observations and rants in the LOS forum. The strict "question and answer" format has served us well in this "Careers and Employment" section over the last few years and I would like to see it build into a useful resource for employees, employers, students and unemployed people in time."


I back Armitage in fairness and the others who gave their opinion on what was asked

A question was asked. In general in all these forums there is always a body of opinion as opposed to a body of fact submitted as answers. There is also generally a body of past experiences thrown in by other regular users.
The question was thrown out there, the facts of 16 hours per month of overtime was submitted as part of the facts supporting the case and people then answered that specific point.
 
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