An employment law question, please help if you can .

jdturk

actually funnily enough when you mentioned drinking it made me rethink what I said and actually I change it to it depends what the person was asked to do before claiming constructive dismissal

MissPoppins_2

hi everyone thanks for your inputs.

It is not an environmental issue that WAS just an example to show the law im talking about. I agree with the poster who says that some laws are criminal if you do them - regardless of who told you to.

I have spent some time looking at some legislation yesterday and yes, it seems I am acting illegally by colluding or enacting the management directive.

Would anyone know whether this affords more rights or less?

Oldernotwiser

How can something be illegal but not criminal?

ceridwen

MissPoppins wrote: »

hi everyone thanks for your inputs.

It is not an environmental issue that WAS just an example to show the law im talking about. I agree with the poster who says that some laws are criminal if you do them - regardless of who told you to.

I have spent some time looking at some legislation yesterday and yes, it seems I am acting illegally by colluding or enacting the management directive.

Would anyone know whether this affords more rights or less?

Hi

I had the feeling that you personally could be held responsible - though obeying orders from someone else.

Errrm...:think: - is there any info. that might be useful on this on any of those workers rights links on that link I sent you by P.M. yesterday?

This is likely to be a bit more difficult to work out the answer to I think. I believe the law that says that an employee is personally responsible for anything illegal they do (even if following orders from above) is only pretty recent - ie a year or two old. With that - I dont know how much information is out there readily to hand on the Internet on this. It may be that this change in the law is so recent that there might not be any case law precedent yet as to what would happen to the employee concerned if it came to it...

Thinks....wonder if it might be helpful to you to look up websites of personnel type matters to see if there is anything like that anywhere on any of them? They DO talk about recent changes in the law and the effect it has had on their members. Offhand - I wonder if "Personnel Today" is still going and has an accessible website - as one possible place to start looking?

EDIT: PErsonnel Today is still going - and has a section on case law. Their homepage is:

www.personneltoday.com

it may take some time to go through that to see if there is any useful precedent either way there - but you might like to look at it.

ceridwen

I dont know what "line of trade" you work in - but I'll chuck this into the mix, as it might give you some sort of ideas as to your likely position:

http://www.rsc.org/pdf/ehsc/legalresponsibilities.pdf

Thriftysaver

What about vicarious liability?

dickydonkin

The trouble with many 'routine violations' is that when the proverbial hits the fan, it will ultimately be you who will bear the brunt of the likely repercussions.

Management (although blatanly aware that such violations are being carried out - usually encouraged by time or cost saving) will deny such breaches were ongoing.

Another aspect which may or may not be relevant is that if the routine violation is health & safety related, it may not just be the company who could be prosecuted.

Health & Safety at Work Act (sec 7)

An employee must:
"take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work".