Termination Of Employment Flashcards
(18 cards)
Three types of dismissal claim
- Wrongful dismissal
- Unfair dismissal
- Constructive dismissal
Wrongful dismissal
this covers a dismissal that is in breach of the employment contract
- e.g. Is the correct notice period is not given
if the procures laid out in the contract or the staff handbook are not adhered to, such as any requirement to give warning before dismissal can occur
Potentially fair reasons for dismissal
- Capability: qualifications, incompetence, health
- Conduct: ordinary conduct, gross misconduct
- Redundancy
- Statutory bar: e.g. work permit expired
- Other substantial reasons
Unfair reasons for dismissal
- Family reasons
- Health and safety reasons
- Issues regarding trade union membership
- Taking part in official industrial action
- Requests for the minimum wage
- Whistleblowing
- Accompanying workers to a disciplinary hearing
Constructive dismissal
- When an employee is entitled to resign over employer’s behaviour
Examples: - Intolerable working environment
- Poor handling of disciplinary matters
- False accusations of misconduct
Conditions required for Contructive dismissal
- The employer must have done something that is in breach of contract
- The employee decides to resign shortly after the breach
- The employee resigned purely because of this breach
- Can be a series of minor breaches or one big one
Discrimination law
Discrimination law in employment applies in:
- Advertising for jobs
- Interviewing
- Terms, conditions, training and promotion in a job
- Termination of employment
Protected characteristics
- age
- Disability
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex/gender
- Sexual orientation
Types of discrimination
- direct discrimination
- associative discrimination: Where somebody has been discriminated against because of someone they are associated with
- perceptive discrimination: Where a person is discriminated against because people perceive they have a protected characteristic
- indirect discrimination
Harassment
- Applies to all of the protected characteristics
- Sexual harassment
- Treating somebody less favourably than someone else because they submitted to or rejected sexual harassment
Victimisation
Occurs when a person makes a complaint about discrimination (or supports somebody else in their complaint) and is subsequently not treated as well as they would have otherwise been
Positive action
Positive action is measures taken by employers to alleviate any disadvantages that those with protected characteristics may experience
Health and safety
It is a criminal offence to an employer to not provide a safe and healthy working environment
Obligations of an employer
- Provide safe systems of working
- maintain plant and equipment
- Ensure safe arrangement of handling, se and storage of hazardous materials
- Provide all necessary information, training and supervision
- Ensure that entrances and exists to buildings are safe
- Provide adequate facilities and arrangement to ensure welfare at work
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
possible reasons why parties may not want to use the court system in a dispute:
- litigation is expensive (time & money)
- Parties may want to discuss disputes in a more informal manner
- Parties may want to continue relationship in other aspects while dispute is ongoing
Types of ADR
- Arbitration
- Mediation
- Conciliation
- Administrative Tribunals
- Ombudsman System
Arbitration
Advantages
- usually lower costs than court proceedings
- proceedings held in private
- Usually quicker than going through courts
Disadvantages
- could still be expensive due to high costs of arbitrator
- no chance to appeal - both parties have agreed to be legally bound by decision
- not as thorough a process as a formal court
Mediation
- in private as with arbitration
- Parties appoint a mediator, legally qualified but will be trained as mediator
- Their role is to help the parties arrive at a mutual agreement
- If parties agree, the agreement can be written down and legally binding
