Unfair dismissal

LegacyUser

Hi all,

Going anonymous for this one.

My boyfriend was fired from his job yesterday and I don't think that it was exactly fair, however he can't report an unfair dismissal as he hasn't been working there for 12 months.

He worked for a fairly large company on a small team, eventually all of the people on the team found better jobs and it ended up being just him and the team leader. The team leader was chasing him to do the work for the whole team (not one person job). He was staying overtime and really working hard to hit the targets and to do everything that he was asked to do. He was very stressed over this a few weeks ago and mentioned to me that other people at work told him that the jobs he manages to do on his own should be done by at least two people.

About a month ago they finally hired new people on the team, my boyfriend was helping them find their feet and to solve any issues they may have encountered with the machines.

Yesterday after he finished all his work they called him into the manager's office and told him that he's fired for not doing his job properly. He asked them for specific examples of the times he didn't do his job well as nothing was ever pointed out to him, they were unable to tell him what he was doing wrong.

Later we find out that the new hires are getting paid much less than him, so I'm thinking that he was let go because they can get more people for less money.

He was working there for nearly 11 months, so he can't report an unfair dismissal yet. The probation period was 9 months and a manager told him a few weeks ago that he's permanent now, however he didn't get this in writing, so we have no way of proving that.

After he was fired he was talking to a few people from the quality team that was checking his work and they all told him that this doesn't make sense.

It doesn't seem fair to me at all, do you think there are any grounds to get this dismissal reviewed by some authority? He doesn't want to go back after all this, but some compensation would be handy as he will most likely spend a few months looking for a new job in this industry.

I'm not looking for legal advice obviously, just your opinions.

Cheers!

OMM 0000

As you say, he was there less than 12 months so there's not much he can do.

Sorry to hear about his/your situation.

drunkmonkey

Get him to put a phone call into HR and say he feels what happened was unfair and can he go speak to them. Do not send an email he needs to talk to someone face to face.
He might not be telling you the whole truth either so let it lie if he asks you and move on from it. There's no compensation coming so forget about that best hope would be a different role within the company that's why a face to face with HR could be the route to go.

sexmag

OMM 0000 wrote: »

As you say, he was there less than 12 months so there's not much he can do.

Sorry to hear about his/your situation.

Not so sure about that

According to the Redundancy Payments Act (http://www.lawreform.i...N_ACT_1967_0021.htm) a contract of employment means:

> whether the contract is express or implied and, if express, whether it is oral or in writing and references to ‘contract’ shall be construed accordingly;

If they said to him verbally I.e in a meeting or something that he was permanent he may have a case,especially if he has a contract for when he initially signed up.

Op does he have a contract he can review?

drunkmonkey

A couple of weeks after probation, he could tell him the sky was purple, there no case worth pursuing. There's no pay out to get.

juke

He probably is unlucky, but double check his notice period in his contract - and any holiday entitlement due. Doubtful, but may add enough days....

beauf

Let the new hires know what happened to him.

davo10

sexmag wrote: »

Not so sure about that

According to the Redundancy Payments Act (http://www.lawreform.i...N_ACT_1967_0021.htm) a contract of employment means:

> whether the contract is express or implied and, if express, whether it is oral or in writing and references to ‘contract’ shall be construed accordingly;

If they said to him verbally I.e in a meeting or something that he was permanent he may have a case,especially if he has a contract for when he initially signed up.

Op does he have a contract he can review?

I think the pertinent fact is that because the ops bf has less that 12 months service, he doesn't have the benefit of the UDA so can't bring a case to the WRC for UD. It really doesn't matter whether he was on probation or given the job on a permanent basis. He is entitled to payment in full for the notice period on his contract, if there isn't one, it's just one week as per statutory entitlement.

The RA only applies where the employee has reached 104 weeks of service.

gallifreya

Check the contract with regards to probation – does it specifically say 9 months? If it does and if he has nothing in writing to the contrary – probation has been successfully completed on expiry of the term.
Does the contract have a clause stating the normal disciplinary procedures do not apply to probation periods? If it does not – then they do and were not observed.

Then, as another poster mentioned, check outstanding leave days (if he hasn’t taken any it could be 20+ days and add those days to the notice period that applies (either one week minimum or higher depending on what the contract states) and see if that brings him up to the year’s service. This probably still wouldn’t affect the decision but might give leverage to convince HR it would be beneficial to adjust some optics in his favour.

Suggest he gathers the facts, to make the best case he can and drops an email to HR and see what comes of it. However, for 11 months service, imo it would be a waste of time and effort trying to progress a case against proper procedures or the reason used for the dismissal – which I reckon might be the only arguments he has. I would strongly resist the dismissal reason (performance.... and they have no documentation to support that) and instead suggest that perhaps the cause of dismissal ‘could’ be more reasonable. Maybe operational – there was just not enough work..... In my view, given the service period, a good result would be a half decent reference to assist with his job search.

the_syco

If he can get a good reference out of the job, leave with that. Get another job, and forget about the place.

If he can't, then start looking at adding up holidays, etc, to see if it brings him over the year.

rock22

The WRC have entertained cases which fall short of the 12 months in exceptional cases . So make contact with them. The fact they waited until just before the 12 months might suggest to them that the company are trying to defeat the UDA.

It is also worth contacting local TD to explain why this legislation needs to be changed to remove this 12 month qualification.