Suspended for 12 weeks advice please (cont)

[Tiredandwiery]

Hi all

 

Back again after my meeting today and i'm starting to get the jist of things, the bottom line is that I feel I am being stitched up, todays meeting was with my manager and HR manager and both have made it abundantly clear that they do not like me(not in as many words).

 

They have told me that my supervisor has told them that he gave me a request to delivery something and that I refused to do it, that is not the case as he never asked me to do such thing, so I ask myself,

 

1) why did he say this and

 

2) Did he really say it.

 

This is not the only accusation that they hit me with, they said to me about 3 times the words "well the accusation is that you did or did not do this or that", towards the end the told me that I had said in front of the same HR manager and my manager but also in front of an Associate Director something that was completly out of character for me to say and I am 110% certain that I would not have said, I cannot even recall the meeting that I apparantly said this in, they seemed surprised that i could not remember a great deal of what happened on that day but we are talking about early december 2011, approx 4 months ago.

 

I feel that I am being unfairly treated and that my Manager and the HR Manager are set on getting me out of their employment and will stop at nothing to do so, sorry but thats how it feels to me, I would also like to say that my union representative that was with me today, did and said nothing to help me or advice me throughout my whole meeting which dissapointed me to say the least.

 

I feel like I should be taking a grieveance out or something but not really sure of where to go from here, sorry I cant give to many details out but I'm that wary that I dont know if my manager or someone would be looking at this forum and pick up on my threads, yes it is that bad and is doing my head in.

 

Any help would be appreciated

Edited March 28, 2012 by citizenB

[scousepie]

Has your employer put in writing and did they give you a copy ?. so what was the outcome.. are you still suspended or have they let you go?

[Tiredandwiery]

Hi again Scousepie

 

The meeting ended with them saying thanks for coming in we will be in touch, didnt say whether I was still suspended or if i could go back to work, so dont know whether to carry on staying at home or to return to work, thurs and fri are my scheduled days off and my duty would start again at 10pm on Sat, I didnt think about asking about that to be fair as I was still shocked about what they have come out with, the meeting was recorded and they told me that the notes would be typed up and sent to me.

 

My plans for tomorrow morning are to get intouch with ACAS firstly but then to also get intouch with my union head office and ask for a union official to help me out, we have 3 union reps at work and my usual rep, i would turn to if needed cannot represent me as she has been dragged in to the investigation because i asked her advice.

 

Where do you think i should go and what do you think i should do, your comments are always helpful

[scousepie]

Your rep should have advised you and asked the right questions, He Sounds like a Burtons Dummy.!!

 

So the meeting was to determine whether your employer is going to proceed with disciplinary action against you or Not ?.

 

Sound a bit weak to me… hear say!! He said she said…

 

I would contact your HR department and ask… if you are still suspended follwing the meeting, don’t get caught out.

 

I would also ask for written statements from the Managers who claim you did not follow there reasonable request outlining the conversation. Chances are they will not provide them, looks good on your part tho.

 

 

Until you receive the minutes or report from the meeting you in limbo… nothing like the written word.

[Tiredandwiery]

once again scousiepie thanks for your comments and help, i will keep you informed

[scousepie]

Soss I forgot, ask HR for copies of all the documents that they have on you, its your right... leave nothing to chance. do you have a contract of employment and company policies docs...

[Tiredandwiery]

Soss I forgot, ask HR for copies of all the documents that they have on you, its your right... leave nothing to chance. do you have a contract of employment and company policies docs...

 

They told me that if they were to take further action I would be given a copy of the relevant statements taken as a managements statement of case, they have interviewed about 30 people to my knowledge but I bet they don't put all the statements in, they have done that to me before, oh yes the same manager has had me up on disciplinary charges before and they were thrown out.

[Tiredandwiery]

Another thing I forgot to mention is that when the incident took place there were 5 of us on duty but only 3 of us have been suspended.

[scousepie]

Sould like you case is building, ok keep all dock, send them an Access Request... what Union are you with?

[assisted blonde]

If 3 out of 5 of you have been suspended then i am not sure that you can say that you are being singled out, without knowing the details of the incident I would say it must be a bit more serious than just refusing to deliver something and 12 weeks is a long time to be suspended unless the incident was very serious.

[Tiredandwiery]

whats an accses request and i am with unison.

 

I have never claimed to be singled out just that they dont like me, to suspend 3 out of the 5 people surly sounds to me and feels like victimasation, IF i was to have been asked to carry out the request, i would have been the last person out of the 5 that would have been asked, as it was not my department.

[assisted blonde]

Its only my opinion but 3 out of 5 dosnt seem like victimisation, but are you being paid while you are suspended? and do you and the other people who are suspended have any warnings on your employment record? Its hard to give info when you dont know the full storey but I respect your reasons for being a bit vague so I am just asking general questions to try and get a better picture.

[Tiredandwiery]

Yeah we are being paid and I have not got any warnings dont know about the other 2 though, i appreciate and respect your thoughts assisted blonde, I would love to give you the whole picture but it is long, I am thinking now just to put the whole story on here so a question, if i was to put the whole story here could i be penalised for that by my employers if they find it.

[honeybee13]

Yeah we are being paid and I have not got any warnings dont know about the other 2 though, i appreciate and respect your thoughts assisted blonde, I would love to give you the whole picture but it is long, I am thinking now just to put the whole story on here so a question, if i was to put the whole story here could i be penalised for that by my employers if they find it.

 

Hello there.

 

I don't know about penalised, but we have seen employers try to use being on CAG against staff. Can you post up an anonymised version, do you think?

 

My best, HB

[Tiredandwiery]

Morning All

 

I have an update for you. After my meeting on weds, I decided to change my union representative and she has made me look at it in a completly different way.

 

The whole investigation is evolved around someone refusing to deliver a medical gas cylinder to a dept, (it still wasn't me though) and they believe that I am responsible for that persons actions because, I read our policy on medical gases and it quite clearly tells us that we have to be trained on medical gases every year for Health & Safety purposes and we must have a minimum PPE (it lists what) and we have 1 out of 3, I have been asking for this training for the past 5 years and nothing has materialised, I got some information from our Health & Safety Officer who said "we had the right to refuse for H&S purposes", I relyaed this information onto my fellow colleagues as I believed they deserved to know this, THAT is what this is all about really (in my opinion). My employers have already said that insurance would cover us if there was a problem but what would happen if I was badly injured and could never work again, no insurance can cover that plus are they not saying that they already knew about the problem.

 

Health & Safety issues is what they should be looking at here and nothing else, thats how i feel, any thoughts are appreciated

[lbruk]

so you have not received training on something that you were asked to do, and then refused to do it for the reason of the fact you haven't been trained? This does not sound reasonable to me.

 

An employer can discipline you for not carrying out a reasonable request, but they have to prove it was reasonable, it does not sound like they have that proof especially if your H&S rep said so!

[assisted blonde]

Now it seems to make more sense, I think you would be right in refusing as you havent been trained and I dont think you were wrong in pointing it out to your collegues, at the end of the day they caould decide from themselves if they wanted to deliver it without training. As long as not delivering it didnt put someones life at risk then thats ok, if it was needed urgently though a lot of people would consider H&S a secondary consideration. i suppose your employer could have felt that you were encouraging other members of staff to refuse to make the delivery (incitement) but if you didnt make a big issue of this and just passed on the information then I cant see they could say this. H&S is an important issue in all work areas although sometimes it seems to overule commonsense, how dangerous would it have been to move this without training? and have the people who refused moved them in the past without making an issue of the H&S legislation?

[Jon D]

That was going to be my question: are you being asked to move a bottle of gas on a trolley or via some complex mechanism / including connection / disconections? Or asked in a different style - is the H&S (only doing 1 out 3 training courses) piece have some degree of spanish working practise attached to it? It does to the lay man to be honest. I can simpathise with your employer to be honest of more of the latter, especially if you are being perceived as "stiring".......

 

However 12 weeks supension? What on earth is that about? It is very rare for investigation to take more than a week....unless you are waiting for a submarine to return to port?!

[stu007]

Hi

 

So what it really comes down to here is your employer supposedly requested that this Medical Gas was delivered to a certain location. According to employer OP refused this request and has therefore been suspended for 12 weeks pending investigation.

 

1. The OP has not been Trained as required by Employer on Medical Gases Handling.

2. Employer suspended Op and 2 others.

3. If Op had carried out this request they would have breached company Health & Safety Policy/Procedures amongst others.

 

You need to write to HR and request the following:

 

1. Discplinary & Grievance Policy/Procedure. (You want both for all not whats in a Staff/Employee handbook as this will be a shortened version)

2. Manual Handling Policy/Procedure.

3. Medical Gases Policy/Procedure.

3. Training Policy/Procedure.

5. Hazardous/Dangerous material Policy/Procedure.

6. Health & Safety Policy/Procedure.

7. Your Training Record.