Hi You should be entitled to whatever contractual notice you have, for the duration of the contract. I doubt that this would be more than a week. The only 'right' you have is notice. The offer of an alternate role, albeit at reduced hours, is just that - an offer. Your choice as to whether you take it or not. You could try negotiating to continue the 3-month contract, but with 25 people going, I can't see the employer agreeing to this.

Hi Not a straight forward query as i don't know the selection criteria used to chose which roles / staff would be redundant. On the face of it, when you accepted the 2nd role (as a suitable alternate employment opportunity), even accepting it with the pay freeze, means the next logical step would have been to 'confirm you in that post' - was this done? Either way, assuming you were 'confirmed in post', and circumstances were such that the company had to go through another round of redundancies, you should certainly have been subject to the usual formal redundancies notices. However, the part that is confusing me is that you say you were told ' that there was no position for you and that you were being made redundant' - this sounds to me that you failed to meet the particular selection criteria for that role, rather than the role 'no longer existing' - which one is it? If the role disappeared, then you should be asking why it had been offered in the first place - there may of course be valid reasons for this disappearance, but you will need to clarify the position before I could comment further. Your last part of the query, iro the pay freeze being lifted - I would say that the conditional offer was partly connected to agreeing a pay freeze, which you agreed to, so I am somewhat confused as to why the role is no longer available........ Happy to answer questions, but need more information.

Hello If you requested the reduction from full time to part time (4 day-week), then there may be valid reasons for your employer changing the basic terms / responsibilities of your role. However, these should certainly have been discussed with you and not imposed upon you. If the employer imposed the 4 -day week, then, that's a completely different issue, and is a breach of contract. Even is an employee is held on the same pay, but they have reduced responsibilities (loss of status), then this loss of status is very certainly grounds for constructive dismissal, or in your case, being linked and as a result of your maternity leave, direct sex discrimination. Either way, you need to decide what you want out of this dispute, and indeed, whether you even wish to go down the dispute road. First point of action is to question rationale behind decisions the employer took in order for you to consider your position. Good luck.

Hello, Generally, a verbal warning does not attract the right of appeal. The reason for this, would be that the disciplinary action would usually be 'informal', and therefore not part of the 'formal' procededure. This would of course be reliant on whatever terms are held within the particular policy. However, in more than 20 years in HR, and having worked with a wide range of different polices across many sectors, I have yet to see an appeal being offered as a result of a verbal warning. Having said all this, the employee would still retain the right to raise a grievance (rather than an appeal).

Hi The mistakes you refer to sound like bad administrative errors and I doubt they could have an impact on an OH assessment or recommendations. There is no reason the employee can't put these errors to right during the appointment. Dob and temporary vs permanent mistakes just sound sloppy, rather than deliberate attempts to derail a referral. Of more importance is if certain measures are recommended by OH that are subsequently ignored by the employer: are we talking risk assessment, work station assessment, reduced hours, that sort of thing? The employee should raise this formally and ask why the recommendations, which came through a referral THEY did, are not being actioned.

Hi One would expect OH to be qualified certainly within the OH Advisory level - usually, anything they are unable to deal with, they would refer on to a medical practitioner. The role of OH is to assess whether there is anything within the work arena that could be contributing to the ill health, they also make recommendations towards supporting the employee back to full time employment. In terms of your question in respect of whether the employee needs to give permission for the OH referral - the short answer is no. Why would they have a problem with a referral intended to help / assist them to better health?

It's a setting, I'll change it. KR

Hi Lemonpinklady I'm not clear about your statement 'they havent taken us on properly' - you were TUPE transferred, there is nothing further to do iro 'taking you on' - you have been taken on, end of. I think you may have difficulty in claiming a right to an increase unless this was a contractual term (very hard to argue on a 'promise' or an 'undertaking'). Contracted employees should not have advantages (or indeed disadvantages) against those permanent employees, however, the increased remuneration may be due to them perhaps not getting the same benefits as the permanent staff and therefore end-pay equalises.......not sure without more detail. First point of action is to launch a formal grievance, setting out your complaint. Good luck

Zooch, you no longer need to submit a grievance prior to ET referral. The legislation changed in April 2009. However, my view is that it is good practice to exhaust an internal procedure before taking it external. The important part is the statutory time limits within which to launch a claim (for constructive dismissals).

Hi, On the face of what you have submitted, I would think you could refer your claim to ET, citing discrimination (race and sex). At the moment, certain Tribunal offices are well known for being sympathetic to these sorts of claims (Stratford being one of them). The levels of compensation of set out (lower, medium, upper) limits and depending on (a) whether it is found that discrimination took place and (2) the affects of that discrimination, will determine at what limit compensation could be set at. If you had more than a years' service and then resigned as a result of this act, then you could additionally attach constructive dismissal to your claim. Difficult to say whether you would 'win', but certainly no harm launching your ET1, then depending on the respondent's Grounds of Resistance, you will have a better idea. Good luck

Hollie, you don't have 'employee' status under ERA, therefore the only route to ET you could take is for the pay dispute (which as previously stated is likely to be limited to the notice period). If, however, you think your age may have contributed to the decision to withdraw the offer, then of course this is an entirely different matter as discrimination claims are not limited to the definition of employee (under ERA). Good luck

MrWorried, you have a VERY strong case for disability discrimination. The fact that your employers have ignored medical advise, to not carry out risk assessments without delay and to cite the reasons they have cited (cost, etc), are to be honest, completely and utterly disgusting. I have recently seen an award of £55 000 go to a claimant simply due to an employer failing to carry out a risk assessment for a pregnant employee (there was no danger to the employee and she was actually not at risk of anything), but procedurally the employer is legally obligated to carry out RA's and failing to do so, is automatic and DIRECT discrimination. If you are able to stomach (and managed with a reduced income) the fight, you could resign, claiming constructive dismissal (breakdown of trust) and Disability Discrimination. However, you would obviously be out of work and it can take anything from 6 months to a year to get a matter to a hearing, depending on where your Tribunal office is located. If you continued in employment, and still referred the matter to ET for disability discrimination, life is likely going to become rather hard and an exit may indeed follow (in which case the constructive dismissal claim could kick in too). From the sounds of things, this employer isnt actually going to take you seriously. So, perhaps time to look for another job and then launch the ET claims.... Good luck

Hi, IRO of the 28 days response time, that sounds quite lengthy for an internal procedure, however, I don't consider it unreasonable. Can't quite follow whether you have already submitted an ET1 under Equal Pay? You can submit this at any time as 2009 legislation has done away with the requirement to follow an internal grievance route before referral to ET. Personally, my view ould be that employees should always demonstrate a willingness to settle a dispute and that can of course be demonstrated with a formal grievance. Please note that the internal grievance AND the ET1 can both take place at the same time - i.e. the same complaint can be dealt with simultaneously - usually a headache for the employer as settlement of one does not mean settlement of the other! Whether you have good grounds for this claim, I don't know without having sight of all the information, however, from what you have said, there does appear to be some unfairness iro male vs female salaries. So, I suggest you submit your ET1, listing the comparators, and deal with it that way. I think the response from the company is quite broad, and while some of it makes sense, it reads like a bit of a cop out to be honest. Good luck.

Just to be clear on this, your friend has no right to 'stop' the OH referral, and has not automatic right to 'consent' to an OH referral. The only right they have is that they can see what the referral document includes as well as the right to see the resultant OH report.

Hi I would like to respond iro HR referral to OH. Usually an employee should be fully prepared to work with HR towards reaching a workable solution. The employer / employee contractual relationship is basically very simple: An employee is contracted to work and the employer is contracted to remunerate that employee for that work. It is when variations to that relationship crop up, that these sorts of questions arise. In my view, an employer (be that HR), has every right to refer an employee to OH and I would have difficulty understanding why an employee would have a problem with this, after all, the employer has a duty of care to ensure that the employee is fit to fulfill their contractual obligations. Having said that, the employee has the right to see the OH referral letter. Equally, the employee has the right to agree or refuse, that OH contact and discuss the medical problem with the GP. However, I must state that in the many, many Tribunals I have attended, it is of no help to the claimant when it can be shown by the employer, that they were obstructive in all matters OH-related. Obstruction can very easily be shown when the employee has refused consent to contact their GP, failed to attend OH appointments, etc. My advise is that the employee is fully engaged in the OH referral, after all, if there is indeed a genuine problem (and I am not for one minute saying there isnt), then there should be no reason for the employee NOT to engage. HR cannot and never should, make any health-related decisions without solid OH advice. Good luck.