Fixed Contract not updated in 6 years,

Berberis

Hi Looking for a bit of advice re the following work contract of a friend.

Duration of Contract reads the following:
The contract is part-time, flexible and continuous for one year, subject to continued Government funding. The provision of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2001, will not apply to termination of this contract where such termination is by reason only of the fixed term. Contract commences on --/--/2013

Basically the job is a part time position in childcare facility where this employee works fixed 3 hours a day and also some extra hours if required when need for various reasons such as other staff out sick etc.

All the staff have been informed that their contracts have to be updated for them to sign next week as the employer forgot to do this over the past number of years.

The staff they have not seen these updated contracts yet but they are hearing strong rumours (I would say strong deliberate leaked rumours from management) that there hour are going to be changed along with the contracts being only temporary.

By my reading of the contract from 2013, the position was a temporary contract for 1 year. But would the fact that it has never been renewed/updated since then, give the employee more rights re it being a permanent position, or more importantly in my friends case would it give them a stronger case in refusing to change their work hours.


A lot of the staff are worried as over the years they have seen the employer take on a lot of people through FAS and various courses and this has impacted a lot on some of the other staffs hours of work

amcalester

I think after 4 years fixed term contracts convert to contracts of indefinite duration (or a permanent contract?) which give the employee more rights.

Dav010

Op, the fixed term of the contract ended in 2014.

Your friend now has a contract of indefinite duration/permanent employment because:

1. In the absence of another fixed term contract at the end of the initial one, the employer will not be able to rely on the employment being of a fixed term.

2. The maximum period an employee can be employed on consecutive fixed term contracts is 4 years. After that, you are considered a permanent employee.

Your friend does not have to sign a new contract, nor accept that he/she is a fixed term employee. If she is sacked now, she will have the benefit of protection under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

Mrs OBumble

Dav010 wrote: »

Op, the fixed term of the contract ended in 2014.

Your friend now has a contract of indefinite duration/permanent employment because:

1. In the absence of another fixed term contract at the end of the initial one, the employer will not be able to rely on the employment being of a fixed term.

2. The maximum period an employee can be employed on consecutive fixed term contracts is 4 years. After that, you are considered a permanent employee.

Your friend does not have to sign a new contract, nor accept that he/she is a fixed term employee. If she is sacked now, she will have the benefit of protection under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

All correct.

But this is a dodgy employer existing on government funding in the childcare sector.
Prepare for redundancy or for the business closing. In the latter case, statutory redundancy is paid by the government... eventually.

Berberis

Cheers for the replies folks.

In fairness I would not call the employer dodgy.
More that it is a non for profit facility and the board are all volunteers so it is run on a shoestring I suppose with no proper expertise at the board and therefore I am assuming that is probably why the contract renewals lapsed.

Having said that, I would also think that if they can, then they will try and get the place run as cheaply as possible by the looks of things