employment advice- sons apprentice

[altcr]

Please can anyone help or point me in the right direction?- in a nutshell:

 

19 year old son gets apprenticeship following student of the year award at college.

He has never been late or had a day off

 

2 weeks ago he tells training provider that he feels that he is not learning while at work, he is just a labourer and is n't taught anything at all and is concerned that he may be just cheap labour and may never be able to do the job as he has n't been taught except by training provider

 

He has almost completed first year having got a distinction from skills solutions.

He gets a text today saying that he ( and the other apprentice) has been warned several times about mobile phone use- He has never been spoken to.

 

says he has been given several verbal warnings- he has not

Mobile phone us is a sack able offence and there will be a disciplinary hearing with their legal advisor.

 

I suspect that they never keep an apprentice more than a year due to costs its cheaper to keep them for a year then get rid. To the best of our knowledge he does n't keep them longer than a year)

 

There may be some retaliation by employer for the disclosure that my son made to his training provider

 

He feels he is about to be sacked ( he's been there almost a year )

 

I have spent most of the afternoon on the phone being passed from pillar to post-acas, legal aid, the bottom line is he can't get any legal advice, my local law centre now charge £168.

 

Is there anywhere that he could get any pro bona legal advice or can any of you help?

Thanks

[SweetLorraine]

Hi altcr,

 

hardly the best introduction to the world of work, I hope your boy knows he may have just crested a shifty sandbank and not hit the rocks. He will go onto better things from what you have said.

 

(Rather ironic that they texted him re mobile phone usage!)

 

• My immediate thought is to get him to contact a local union rep. Even if he isn't in the union most reps would be up for looking after a young 'un just starting out surely?
  
• Can his training advisor help you at all? - after all he/she is called an advisor.
  
• Maybe a visit to your local Citizen's Advice Bureau? (though they might refer you back to ACAS).
  

If he has been there less than a year he may have only limited employment rights.

 

Perhaps your son needs to have a think about what would be best for him in this situation. For example:-

 

• Does he want to carry on being 'a labourer' and therefore not building on his bright beginnings?
  
• Would he be happier looking for somewhere else? - even if that meant being on the dole for a while looking for that better opening.
  
• Does he want to fight these allegations and stay on at the organisation? Or would it be better for him if he negotiated a good reference and left by mutual consent?
  

It may look a bit wobbly right at this moment - but if he were to leave, it might be the best thing to happen to him.

All the best. Let us know how he gets on.

[renegadeimp]

Sounds like a simple case of a shady employer to me.

[altcr]

Thanks for your reply, It gets worse! apparently the text was sent ( in error assume) to all employees, so now everyone knows his business

 

I rang UNITE the union this morning and they said if he joined now they could give telephone advice but could n't represent him , they would only represent for anything occurring after this event.

 

It appears that he can take a union rep to the meeting ( not possible) or a member of staff -can't see that happening

 

Really I wonder if he has a case for loss of potential earnings etc. , both my son and the other apprentice ( who had the same text) say they have not been taught anything , they are just labourers under the guise of apprentices, so the employer gets 2 labourers for less than £3.00 per hour.

 

I rang the training provider and he will have an urgent meeting with his boss tomorrow and get back to me.

 

There are other issues, for example the text says he has had several verbal warnings- he has not had any verbal warnings, the text claims customers have told them about mobile phone use, strange when my son tells me its rather embarrassing as most customers comment what a nice polite lad he is!

Can they be asked to prove that customers have complained?

[cheesel]

Hi Altcr

 

I presume your son is on a years apprenticeship with a Training Provider who has arranged the apprenticeship. Do you know if your son is employed by the company he works for, do they pay his pay cheque or does he claim it via timesheet from the Training Providers ATA.

 

If he is fully employed by the company he works for they have the same responsibilities to follow disciplinary procedures as with any other staff member.

 

The Training Provider should have a "safeguarding" or "wellbeing" officer, his training centre manager should have details of how to contact this person, in fact if he has informed his TCM she/he should have contact them by now. The Training Provider has a duty of care to look after your son and make sure he is not being used as "slave labour" although being in the industry I do know that some young people want to run before they can walk and assume its "slave labour"

 

If the Training Centre Manager has done nothing, ring and ask for the safeguarding officers contact number and phone them. Someone should be able to help him sort it out.

For your information he should always contact his Training Centre Manager and/or his Work Placement Assessor, they can both report back information to the appropriate adult.

 

Hope you get it sorted out, not all apprenticeships are like this, but I can understand your concern for your son.

[altcr]

Thanks, that's very helpful He gets paid via the employer, when the training provider gets back to me I will ask for details of the safeguarding /wellbeing officer, to clarify he just hands tools and equipment to the joiner, he says he has never been shown any skills at all. He says its rather embarrassing as due to the text being sent to all employees every person at his works now knows what's going on.

If he were to stay on( he completes his first year at the beginning of September, then the employer would have to pay him another £2.00 per hour, as far as he is aware my son sons there seems to be no record of any apprentice making it past the first year.

[cheesel]

Definitely get onto the TCM and get the Safeguarding Officers number, all apprentices should be employment led now, so he would have to be doing a BTEC of some sort in Work Competency and seeing an Assessor in the workplace, believe me passing tools wouldn't get my apprentices through their BTEC's. Very interesting that its more than a year and so far no one has completed this.