ASDA refused holiday now My son has to quit

LittleVoice

ceridwen wrote: »

Well - yes...they could unfairly dismiss for this - and I guess get away with it for such a short length of service.

The whole point though would be that they MIGHT not unfairly dismiss and things might be okay. Even if they did do so - then OP's son would have been dismissed, rather than resigned = quite a difference in the eyes of the DWP when it comes to claiming benefit (ie hopefully no benefit disqualification for having been deemed to have resigned). The DWP, after all, can disqualify someone for benefit for up to 6 months if they are deemed to have resigned from a job.

OP's son was working 15 hours so I probablya JSA claim isn't in the frame. And, if it were, justified dismissal by an employer caused by the behaviour of an employee can also be used to disqualify a claimant.

Instead of thinking about the DWP and benefits, what about the view a prospective employer would take of a dismissal rather than a resignation?

N9eav

Manager has asked to see son on Saturday when he comes in for work as he was 'concerned' over the letter of resignation....... We shall see...

ceridwen

LittleVoice wrote: »

OP's son was working 15 hours so I probablya JSA claim isn't in the frame. And, if it were, justified dismissal by an employer caused by the behaviour of an employee can also be used to disqualify a claimant.

Instead of thinking about the DWP and benefits, what about the view a prospective employer would take of a dismissal rather than a resignation?

Well - I presume that the question of "why did you leave your last job? - ah I see...dismissal..." would come up at interview. At that point OP's son explains the reason. Any reasonable employer would realise that the dismissal wasnt due to anything OP's son had done/not done and discount it. If I were the employer and was told something like that - I would decide whether I had been told the truth. If my decision was that I had - then it wouldnt constitute the slightest problem to me - so as long as the interviewing employer is someone who trusts themselves to be able to spot a lie a mile off then...no problem.

********************

As regards the DWP - then i dont know the inner workings of their minds - but I would imagine they would be:
- son must not resign from job (= problem with any benefit due)
- BUT if son is sacked for a reason like the one given - then son had done nothing to cause his dismissal (= any benefit due being awarded okay). The dismissal would have occurred because of a fault by the employer - ie the employer breaking an agreement made at interview.

socks_uk

N9eav wrote: »

Manager has asked to see son on Saturday when he comes in for work as he was 'concerned' over the letter of resignation....... We shall see...

Is this the department manager or GSM (general store manager)?

I put in a holiday form to start my holiday on Good Friday 2010. 2 weeks to visit my sister in USA and because I work in a school too I can only go in school holidays and have to go before April 15th 2010 due to the airline vouchers we have. My department manager refused it so I went to personnel to find out how much notice I need to quit my job (I've been at asda for 5 years and I was told that if it was due to my holiday I should go and talk to the GSM. When I saw him he said there was no problem with me taking my holiday and signed my holiday form.

I'm writing this just to show the GSMs are human and listen to us mere shopfloor workers. Good luck for tomorrow and I hope you too have a Happy American Christmas!! (Be careful who you say Happy Christmas to... you'll have to get used to saying HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Golden_Anemone

A few years ago my youngest brother was working full time in Asda when he was asked by our father to accompany my learning-disabled sister on a visit to him in USA for 3 weeks over Christmas. Our sister could not have travelled on her own and my other siblings and I have our own children and couldn't leave them for 3 weeks over Christmas.

My brothers departmental manager went ballistic and refused when he explained showing him his contract which specifically states that staff are not able to take leave during December and early January. He then approached the store manager and said he wanted to go and while he hoped he would have a job to go back to he would understand if they had to let him go. They wouldn't give him permission before he went but he didn't resign either. When he rang them the day after he returned they gave him his shifts for the coming week and he was kept on.

There is therefore room for flexibility but this is likely to vary from store to store and manager to manager. Proving that your son put this holiday on his application form and believed he had a verbal agreement that he could take it is unlikely to over-ride his written contract which will almost certainly include the "no Christmas / New Year leave" clause which is standard but you may find they are prepared to exercise some flexibility in the circumstances.

Good luck.

socks_uk

ceridwen wrote: »

Well - I presume that the question of "why did you leave your last job? - ah I see...dismissal..." would come up at interview. At that point OP's son explains the reason. Any reasonable employer would realise that the dismissal wasnt due to anything OP's son had done/not done and discount it. If I were the employer and was told something like that - I would decide whether I had been told the truth. If my decision was that I had - then it wouldnt constitute the slightest problem to me - so as long as the interviewing employer is someone who trusts themselves to be able to spot a lie a mile off then...no problem.

I'd like to believe that an employer would look at an applicant's application form and if it says 'dismissed' he would still offer an interview but I might be wearing my rose-tinted glasses again. Being 'given the sack' for whatever reason doesn't look good on the application form.

Having said that... if N9eav's son has another job which he has been at for at least since before he started this one, if it does end up with him leaving asda, I would completely miss off the asda job altogether on his CV as there wouldn't be a 'break in his career'. No idea if this is morally (or legally come to that) wrong though.

I hope it doesn't come to this though and I guess he'll find out tomorrow.

socks_uk

Any news on your son's situation?

olly300

cazziebo wrote: »

When someone is young and has very little work experience, every reference matters.

No it doesn't. I used references from voluntary work I undertook rather than the weekend jobs I did as the responsibilities where greater.

N9eav

socks_uk wrote: »

Any news on your son's situation?

Well he had a chat with the dept. manager on Saturday. Kids seem to lack the skills to discuss things in those type of meetings I think! Anyway I guess they tried to work out the problem, but still won't let him have the holiday so a waste of time really. They said the letter he wrote was not a resignation letter and so needs to write another???
Anyway he has to give one weeks notice and will do that so it works out that he leaves the week before we go away. He has always had a job at Mc D's and the manager has offered to make up the hours there if he wants. So all is well. Still can't figure ASDA out though, unless they just want to shed temp staff after Christmas. I guess he could say if he ever needed to mention it that the ASDA job was a temp Christmas thing. He will have left only 2 days before the 12 week contract ends anyway.... Pity though we don't get the staff discount card now. :rolleyes: But we do get cheap Big Macs:D
So new year will be college and Mc D's until he gets his A levels and then......Astronaught? who knows?

floss2

N9eav wrote: »

......So new year will be college and Mc D's until he gets his A levels and then......Astronaught? who knows?

Wasn't it traditionally always Arts graduates who asked "Big Mac & fries" ?