Constructive Dismissal

[heman]

Hi,

Please can someone advise me on where I stand on constructive dismissal. I have worked for a large electrical retailer for almost 5 years and today I walked out as ultimately I can not work for these people anymore.

 

I can no longer deal with the micromanagement and emails sent at unreasonable hours demanding replies on why my colleagues and myself were not hitting company wide targets on extended warranties and accessories which in truth customers didn't always need or want.

 

I can no longer deal with my pay being constantly wrong, The managers excuse "I send the rotas out every week", when i went to him to tell him it was wrong, he said "he would sort it". This has now been going on 3 months.

 

I can no longer sell services that fail, I myself have went out to my customers houses no less than 20 times in the last year to fix problems that customers had paid "so called experts" to do. I done this in my own time and didn't charge or expect anything in return.

 

I don't want to work with my pushy colleagues (telling customers they need things they don't require and pressuring them into things that would only ever be a what if? as they are scared of the threats and repercussions of the manager should they not sell these items)

 

I am also fed up of the theft of personal items from the staff room (only little things such as food, toiletries) but this gets brushed under the carpet.

 

I also recently got signed off from the doctor for suffering depression caused by my workplace, I could of been signed off for a long period of time but I returned after a week ( no return to work interview was scheduled or nothing was done to facilitate my return)

 

I also hurt my foot in the workplace and still suffering problems with my achilles and was struggling with mobility but i was asked to walk across the shop floor (100 metres +) to place a piece of plastic on the edge of a shelf.

 

All these things has contributed to me walking out today as i don't want to suffer with threats any more if i don't sell services that 99% of the time fail. I have hundreds of emails as evidence with some including threats on what would happen if we failed to sell these items.

 

Thank you for reading and any help would be greatly appreciated.

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG. I'm sorry to hear about your problems.

 

I hope the forum guys will be along later with advice for you, when their day jobs permit.

 

My best, HB

[Emmzzi]

hello

 

What you have tried to resolve the problems please? For example, have you raised a grievance?

[SabreSheep]

HI and sorry for the situation you find yourself in.

 

Correct, in most situations you need to try and resolve the problems formally after failed informal attempts.

 

Whilst not being a complete bar to tribunal proceedings, any claim that is successful may be reduced at tribunal for breach of process, sometimes as much as 50%

 

 

Are you a member of a trade union? If not I reccomend that you seek advice from CAB or better as soon as possible.

 

My first instinct it to force yourself to go back and face the music or get signed off by your doctor like yesterday for work related stress depression. That *might* give you some protection from being dismissed due to gross misconduct. Otherwise you will need to launch a well prepared grievance.

 

ALso be aware that in some instances now you have to pay a bond for a tribunal hearing and also there are strict time limits of 3 months less one day from the incident or last in a list of incidents that the Tribunal form must be received by the tribunal.

 

This is probably not what you hoped to hear. But when your in the situation you are in now it is easy so so easy to act rashly and get caught out.

[steampowered]

Sorry to hear about this very difficult situation. My initial reaction is that this does not sound like enough to have a strong constructive dismissal claim. The legal theory behind constructive dismissal is that you need to have a fundamental breach of your employment contract which was so serious as to justify you terminating your employment contract immediately.

 

It is difficult (though not impossible) to bundle lots of smaller issues together and fit them into the constructive dismissal box. If you had raised these separate issues formally, e.g. through a formal grievance, and that grievance was ignored, that would give you a single "fundamental breach" which your employment tribunal claim could bite on. Unless you have something like this which unifies all the small issues together its going to be tough.