Any employment law specialists around?
Discussion
miniman said:
In short, does one have any rights, specifically around constructive dismissal, in the first two years of employment?
Unless you are female and preggers, black/Asian and sacked for that reason, or picked on for being disabled then you have no options. Think if you are gay you can claim you are victimised because of this. Might be a few others. Disability is another one I believe, what defines a disability is sometimes tricky. Basically the law says that unless you are being picked on because of something not politically correct they can do what they want. I'd rather have a legal system where is doesn't matter how long you have worked for, they still have to provide a valid reason for sacking you.
The system as it stands is wide open to abuse. It leads to people claiming people are pulling "cards", it's not right and not fair.
To put it another way, an employee has all sorts of statutory rights during the first two years of employment, but, importantly, not the right to claim unfair dismissal save on a few specified grounds. The employee also has whatever rights are agreed under the contract of employment, employment law being contractual as well as statutory. An employee could claim constructive dismissal as a matter of contract, but the remedy for this would be limited to the equivalent of contractual notice pay.
Breadvan72 said:
To put it another way, an employee has all sorts of statutory rights during the first two years of employment, but, importantly, not the right to claim unfair dismissal save on a few specified grounds. The employee also has whatever rights are agreed under the contract of employment, employment law being contractual as well as statutory. An employee could claim constructive dismissal as a matter of contract, but the remedy for this would be limited to the equivalent of contractual notice pay.
If that is acceptable, why have do they have special laws for people who are considered in need of protection? From a purely common sense perspective, most companies with a HR department know how to play the system and compile documents - and having legislation like this means that people are LESS likely to be hired if they are from the list of those who are harder to get rid off. Positive discrimination is just like locking people in cages to punish them - it doesn't work.
"Equality before the law" - unless the government of the day decide to tell the legal people different.
No one is talking of positive discrimination (which remains unlawful). As to negative discrimination, if you compare the situation now to how it was before the mid 1970s, anti discrimination law has had an observably positive impact on gender balance, ethnic minority employment, and more recently the employment of disabled people. The law should usually follow social trends, but sometimes, as in this context, it can help to nudge society along a bit. I am not saying that things are perfect, but they have improved.
Look at it from an employer perspective - in the first two years the employers rights are not dissimilar to those of the employee, not least in that they can end the relationship should they so choose. It is only after two years that the relationship becomes much more one way in terms of the employee being the one who can end the relationship when they choose in a way that the employer cannot.
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