Hours cut to zero after reporting colleague for misconduct

LegacyUser

Hey,

wondering what ye good people here think of the following situation, and maybe someone here has some advice on what to do. It's a bit of a sensitive issue, so I'll have to keep a few things fairly vague (tl;dr summary at the end…).

A friend is employed in a large company on an hourly basis, being called to work whenever there is work going. In this particular industry, there are a lot of procedures and regulations regarding how to deal with its clients, and these are drummed into employees regularly, including what to do if you notice any problems with clients or staff.

After a while in the job, she noticed that a colleague wasn't following procedures, and reported that colleague to management (these were serious issues concerning violations of client’s rights, and she followed all the procedures that were drummed into her to the letter). An investigation was started, after a lot of meetings she was told to withdraw the allegations, and then got moved to a different branch of the company (while the colleague stayed on. In a little twist to the story, rumour has it that one person on the investigation panel was a good friend of that employee, and other people had had issues with the person before but no one had reported that person thus far).

In that new branch, the manager seems to have it in for her, giving her extremely poor performance reviews from the start (which were very unfair and biased, since her performance up to then was impeccable) - the friend contested these reviews, and was told she could send in her amendments to these reviews which the manager would pass on to HR, to be added to her file - which probably hasn’t been done, this is based on a few other things that manager didn’t do even though she said she would), and eventually told her there were no more hours, and that she was to be moved back to the original branch where she came from.

However, the manager never informed the original branch of this decision, and after checking with them (after 2 weeks of not hearing anything), the friend was told there were no more hours for her there either, due to 'cutbacks'. Since then she has met a few of her old colleagues, and she was told there were plenty of hours going, and the branch was in fact short staffed.

Effectively, it seems, she was punished for reporting this colleague...She thought she did the right thing in terms of client protection, dared to speak up, and lost her livelihood as 'reward' (going from fulltime hours prior to this incident to zero), whereas other people just kept quiet and kept their job. Now, short of cutting her losses and moving on, is there anything she can do? HR in this case seem to be part of the problem, by the way.

Sorry for the long saga - any advice appreciated!


tl;dr version: friend got all her working hours cut to zero after reporting a colleague for misconduct: any recourse?

wmpdd3

What kind of contract did she have, zero hours contracts are not allowed in ireland, was she an agency worker?

LegacyUser

she has a locum contract as far a I know...will ask her later and post back.

Mrs OBumble

If clients rights were being abused, is there any kind of professional or supervisory body she could complain to?

They might not have legal clout, but sometimes relational clout can work wonders if you get the right people interested.

LegacyUser

just posting back here - she's on a locum contract, and it does say that they cannot guarantee you hours - which has their backside covered from an employer's perspective.

Not sure who the supervisory body would be, and how much trouble she'd be inviting on herself informing them - cause obviously, she'd rather have her hours back than a battle on her hands...(and the last thing the employer will do is to give her any work once they hear a complaint coming down the next higher body...)

tony81

Your friend has little or no rights given the nature of her contract.

A few bits of advice you can give your friend for future reference:

If it ain't your tail, don't wag it.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
Don't rock the boat.
I don't have a dog in this fight.
etc, etc.

However, given that she's effectively been fired and assuming she doesn't need a reference... she could threaten to report the breach to the Data Protection Commissioner.

uberwolf

a lot of large companies have a formal external whistleblowing contact point. I would follow up with that route to escalate the issue.

LegacyUser

thanks all for your help so far. Will tell her to try the whistleblower contact, might be worth it.

tony: she now knows not to rock the boat - however, how are you meant to know these double standards at work - they tell you how to handle suspected abuse in a formal process, but if you actually dare to go through with this, you lose your job?! And this in an industry that has a pretty bad reputation for that sort of carry on and is trying to overcome it's history? Which effectively means that people can continue doing what they want, since no one will say anything for fear of losing their job?

For example, would you be happy to leave your children, parents, partner in care knowing that this could happen to you or your loved ones? Or would you rather the staff has means to report suspected abuse, and are allowed to report it without being afraid of negative repercussions, thus ensuring a continued high level of care with respect for the clients?