gross misconduct and suspension advice please

pictish

Hi all
I work at a large DIY store in october last year I came into contact with chemicals which resulted in the skin on my hands blistering and pretty much falling off and led to a few other health problems one of them leadng to surgery which resulted in 2 months off work for healing. I just returned to work and straight after my back to work meeting where they refused to discuss duties or anything related to work I was then given a stage one interview for gross misconduct. and was suspended.
The background on this starts with the injury in october, they refused to let me fill in the accident book and refused to investigate. I was off sick for 2 weeks at first had 3 days back where no back to work interview was given then had to go off with secondary infections to my hands due to them making me work in amongst old and mouldy stock[think seagulls and birds roosting above it] as well as clean out areas in teh garden centre. I then was back to work for a week and I had a reaction to one of the meds the doctor had given me so also had 1 day off sick.
A month after being back I was notified that I had to attend a meeting and an investigation took place into me for being off sick. I had several meetings over the course of the next 3 months regarding this, they tried to get a list of medicines I had taken while off and what treatments the doctors had gave me for their own use not for occupational health then in the interview promised to send me to occupational health and then decided 5 minutes after the interview that it was too expensive. They again refused to investigate the cause of me being off or allow an entry in the accident book. The cause of the length of time was they stated they were going to check policies with head office, came back with said policies then finally I found out there was not any. I was told I could contact HR and find out about policies they refused to speak to me directly as they only give advice to managers or the instore assistants who so far didnt seam able to give me any accurate info.
Finally a decision was made and I was given a formal warning , the appeal letter stated I had 7 days to appeal after 2 days I was approached by HR assistant who told me to write the appeal on teh spot and that she would only give me another 24 hours to lodge it. The meeting took place 20 minutes after I handed in the appeal, I felt pressured into having it without the witness who had been with me for the other stages as he was not available[my fault]. During the meeting the manager stopped the HR assistant from note taking and went off the record, when I stated I felt the process had been overly long and there had been several issues and that I had already spoke to my manager about rasing a grievance[first part of grievance procedure] about not only the whole process but also the dropping of OH and failure to investigate the cause of injury, he stated the the grievance procedure was militant bull**** and that any member of staff who used it would not be doing himself any favours. The HR assistant stated that if I was so unhappy with them linking 1 of the absences she could have them undone and then I would be sacked despite the fact that they still had not done the second disciplinary/investigation. At the end of the meeting I was told to come back after 5 minutes knocked at the door the manager answered told me to wait outside but didnt close the door properly so I overheard the HR assistant giving the verdict to head office and laughing about it then telling the manager he was not supposed to have made up his mind and not to give the verdict to me as it was to be done in writing. WHen I informed them when I eventually got asked to come in that they could clearly be heard outside the manager lied and said he hadnt came to a decision despite the fact the HR assistant actually was printing the letter off 3 foot away from me with teh PC screen showing.
On the day prior to my surgery I was late in due to the roads being closed by police and buses being cancelled, when I phoned up the manger begged me to try to come in as she was standing in the store with an articulated lorry parked up and no one to work the stock[she was also pregnant and not able to lift] I managed to get in 30 minutes later and worked until my official finishing time I got clearance to leave by the manager due to the weather and the fact I had to make sure I got into the city for my surgery the next day[I live in a rural area].
After the 2 months off for recovery during which I had visited the store several times in person and made several phone calls to update work I was contacted by the new general manager and accused of being off work without any cause and failing to keep contact. I had the new fitness to work stating light duties only sickline and had been called by my manager who said he would get in touch when he had a plan for me which he did not as well as spent ages on the phone with occupational health who also stated I would get a meeting before I returned and probably have a phased back to work.
The charge against me is that I deliberatly made a false statement and dishonest conduct, the 2 witnesses against me are the HR assistant and the manager from my appeal. The charge is in relation to a timesheet where I have signed in at 7.30 not signed out and not made any claim for the hours. I dont even think I signed In as I got grabbed as soon as I set foot in teh place by a manic pregnant woman given a quick informal regarding being late and set to work. The normal way mistakes on timesheets are dealt with is for whoever is doing them to speak to the person, my own timesheets show multiple changes for various reasons and even the manager at the interview stated how many times have you seen timesheets being mentioned at staff briefings, if they did this to every member of staff there would not be any left in the building. I had also just signed a statement saying I started at 8pm so its strange that I would go down and try and falsify my start time on purpose.
The strange thing is their witness statements are not really geared towards the charge, both focus heavily on my finish time or if I had permission to leave as well as things like if I phoned in to say I was late. To most of the questions they give negative answers followed by I dont know eg certainly not, not to my knowledge. There is also descrepencies regarding their statements, for instance the HR person says she went to the general manager after not finding me in the store and had to scroll through 30 minutes of cctv to find me leaving after speaking to him, the manager states he personally viewed me leaving and then checked the cctv then showed it to the hr assistant, if he saw me leave why not challenge me and why did the HR assitant have to scroll through the cctv when they knew exactly which camera to check and at what time.There is also the matter that they went to all that trouble instead of just asking the floor manager I was working with if I had left.
There is also the fact that the investigation did not start ie their statements were not taken until 27/4/10 the day in question was 22/2/10 the manager who did the investigation did the whole thing while I was being interviewed for the back to work programme.
Sorry for the long post has anyone got any advice right now Im just thinkng about putting my notice in as my house is going up for sale soon and I plan on travelling.

garry

Zazen999

I'm really really sorry but it's impossible to take all that in.

Can you do a timeline and put some lines inbetween....like

18th of whatever: this happened.

20th of whatever, this happened.

Then people can get an idea of what happened, when and the surrounding issues.

Also, put in when you started working there, as it really is important.

Lavendyr

pictish wrote: »

Hi all

I work at a large DIY store. In october last year I came into contact with chemicals which resulted in the skin on my hands blistering and pretty much falling off and led to a few other health problems, one of them leading to surgery which resulted in 2 months off work for healing.

I just returned to work and straight after my back to work meeting where they refused to discuss duties or anything related to work I was then given a stage one interview for gross misconduct. and was suspended.

The background on this starts with the injury in october, they refused to let me fill in the accident book and refused to investigate. I was off sick for 2 weeks at first, then had 3 days back where no back to work interview was given, then had to go off with secondary infections to my hands due to them making me work in amongst old and mouldy stock[think seagulls and birds roosting above it] as well as clean out areas in thegarden centre.

I then was back to work for a week and I had a reaction to one of the meds the doctor had given me so also had 1 day off sick.

A month after being back I was notified that I had to attend a meeting and an investigation took place into me for being off sick. I had several meetings over the course of the next 3 months regarding this, they tried to get a list of medicines I had taken while off and what treatments the doctors had gave me - for their own use, not for occupational health - then in the interview promised to send me to occupational health and then decided 5 minutes after the interview that it was too expensive.

They again refused to investigate the cause of me being off or allow an entry in the accident book. The cause of the length of time was they stated they were going to check policies with head office, came back with said policies then finally I found out there was not any. I was told I could contact HR and find out about policies, but they refused to speak to me directly as they only give advice to managers or the instore assistants who so far didnt seem able to give me any accurate info.

Finally a decision was made and I was given a formal warning. The appeal letter stated I had 7 days to appeal. After 2 days I was approached by HR assistant who told me to write the appeal on the spot and that she would only give me another 24 hours to lodge it. The meeting took place 20 minutes after I handed in the appeal, I felt pressured into having it without the witness who had been with me for the other stages as he was not available[my fault].

During the meeting the manager stopped the HR assistant from note taking and went off the record, when I stated I felt the process had been overly long and there had been several issues and that I had already spoke to my manager about rasing a grievance[first part of grievance procedure] about not only the whole process but also the dropping of OH and failure to investigate the cause of injury, he stated the the grievance procedure was militant bull**** and that any member of staff who used it would not be doing himself any favours.

The HR assistant stated that if I was so unhappy with them linking 1 of the absences she could have them undone and then I would be sacked despite the fact that they still had not done the second disciplinary/investigation. At the end of the meeting I was told to come back after 5 minutes. I knocked at the door, the manager answered & told me to wait outside. He didn't close the door properly so I overheard the HR assistant giving the verdict to head office and laughing about it, then telling the manager he was not supposed to have made up his mind and not to give the verdict to me as it was to be done in writing.

When I informed them, when I eventually got asked to come in, that they could clearly be heard outside, the manager lied and said he hadnt came to a decision despite the fact the HR assistant actually was printing the letter off 3 foot away from me with thePC screen showing.

On the day prior to my surgery I was late in due to the roads being closed by police and buses being cancelled, when I phoned up the manger begged me to try to come in as she was standing in the store with an articulated lorry parked up and no one to work the stock[she was also pregnant and not able to lift] I managed to get in 30 minutes later and worked until my official finishing time I got clearance to leave by the manager due to the weather and the fact I had to make sure I got into the city for my surgery the next day[I live in a rural area].

After the 2 months off for recovery during which I had visited the store several times in person and made several phone calls to update work I was contacted by the new general manager and accused of being off work without any cause and failing to keep contact. I had the new fitness to work stating light duties only sickline and had been called by my manager who said he would get in touch when he had a plan for me, which he did not, as well as spent ages on the phone with occupational health who also stated I would get a meeting before I returned and probably have a phased back to work.

The charge against me is that I deliberatly made a false statement and dishonest conduct, the 2 witnesses against me are the HR assistant and the manager from my appeal. The charge is in relation to a timesheet where I have signed in at 7.30 not signed out and not made any claim for the hours. I dont even think I signed in as I got grabbed as soon as I set foot in the place by a manic pregnant woman given a quick informal regarding being late and set to work.

The normal way mistakes on timesheets are dealt with is for whoever is doing them to speak to the person, my own timesheets show multiple changes for various reasons and even the manager at the interview stated how many times have you seen timesheets being mentioned at staff briefings, if they did this to every member of staff there would not be any left in the building. I had also just signed a statement saying I started at 8pm so its strange that I would go down and try and falsify my start time on purpose.

The strange thing is their witness statements are not really geared towards the charge, both focus heavily on my finish time or if I had permission to leave as well as things like if I phoned in to say I was late. To most of the questions they give negative answers followed by I dont know eg certainly not, not to my knowledge.

There are also discrepencies regarding their statements. For instance the HR person says she went to the general manager after not finding me in the store and had to scroll through 30 minutes of cctv to find me leaving after speaking to him. The manager states he personally viewed me leaving and then checked the cctv then showed it to the hr assistant, if he saw me leave why not challenge me and why did the HR assistant have to scroll through the cctv when they knew exactly which camera to check and at what time.

There is also the matter that they went to all that trouble instead of just asking the floor manager I was working with if I had left. There is also the fact that the investigation did not start ie their statements were not taken until 27/4/10 the day in question was 22/2/10 the manager who did the investigation did the whole thing while I was being interviewed for the back to work programme.

Sorry for the long post has anyone got any advice right now Im just thinkng about putting my notice in as my house is going up for sale soon and I plan on travelling.

garry

Garry, I have put paragraphs in your post to hope that someone will be able to help but I confess that having read that I still don't really understand what has happened! Perhaps someone else will grasp it a bit better & be able to help - all the best.

Weirdlittleman

You tend to think when you get overly long grammerless stories that people are ranting and the vast majority is irrelevant. This seems to be the case here.

As I see it there are a few issues here

1) The accident book - Did you ever get to enter your injury? Was the injury definitly caused by work? The suggestion you had reactions to medical treatment after a rash suggests maybe not

2) The first discliplinary - seems all ok. many companies do have discliplinaries for sickness over a certain criteria

3) The appeal - Again I am afraid you have agreed to there actions so have little cause for complaint. You cant refuse to your rights then reactively complain later.

4) The decision. I am afraid whilst unprofessional letting you overhear or laughing about it in its own isnt illegal. It may however help support other claims of flawed processes.

5) The bit about being late and your surgery trip seems totally irrelvant to the thread

6) The timesheet - Did you fill in a timesheet incorrectly?

7) Did you leave the store whilst documents in the store said you were on duty? If you did then you are on sticky ground and are relying on them believing you and showing some goodwill and the rest of your story makes it unlikely. Beware as if you are guilty (even by accident) of what you are accused going off on a rant about the rest which you cant prove is contributory even though it's likely will simply ensure peoples backs are up. It will also help with any appeals etc so dont give them the chance to cover themselves first.

mayb_2

Well I have recently been through a Tribunal process with very strong evidence that I was sacked because I raised issues at work - whistleblowing. I had just me and the other side brought a barrister and legal team. I ended up losing the case and I had already lost my job. I do understand from the emotions contained within your post how much this unfair treatment has affected you. Believe me I have been there and appreciate how you feel. When it comes to taking action you may find that nobody realy cares how you feel - it comes down to employment law and this bunch will come up with a set of records that say they did everything they had to do.

I am telling you this because it appears you do not have a Union to support you and you have no real witnesses to anything that happened if I am reading this correctly.

I would strongly suggest you walk away from this situation and hand in your notice. You can write that you feel you were forced to take this decision because of the treatment you received if it helps you to put this behind you.

I do strongly believe in the rights of employees to raise a grievance or oppose disciplinary proceedings etc but you are dealing with a large company who can't be bothered to follow even the procedures they do have.

For your own peace of mind put them down as a waste of your time and move on. I would look for another job though as you will have to wait to receive any unemployment benefit if you leave under your own steam.

You may be able to bring a personal injury claim if you can show that your health was definately affected by conditions you were working under. Check your household insurance for legal cover on this - you may have a free legal helpline and get advice from them that way. You can phone ACAS helpline and they will tell you what your rights are and advise you on the proper procedures for you to follow.

If you do decide to take this further then you need to raise a formal grievance and start following the procedures for this to the letter. Have you got a contract of employment and does it stipulate how this should be done? If you have done something wrong with your timesheets they could sack you on that basis - so think about your actual position on this issue. It is best to put this grievance in writing and you should claim you suffered an injury at work and have since received unfair treatment. I should imagine refusing you the right to enter something into the accident book would be a breach of your contract too.

You should log on to the ACAS site and follow the procedures on there regarding grievances etc if you have no guides at work. Sometimes there is a Staff Handbook that you can ask to see if your actual contract does not tell you what you should do in this situation. Putting everything into a timeline is very good advice. Try to leave out too much detail and bring it down to a couple of points if you can.

Make sure that you do have a companion if not a Union rep at any meetings held with management. It is unreasonable for management not to allow you to be accompanied at a formal meeting and they should delay a meeting if your companion cannot attend.

wuckfit

Might be worth contacting the Health and Safety Executive. If an accident occurred at work and they won't record it in the accident book, there's something fishy.

pictish

ok
18months employed there, payrise for good performance just beforehand. Will skip most the ramble as it was only there to show they had not acted reasonably or in a fair manor in the past.

1. with regards to the original injury that caused all the sick, both A&E and my own doctor believe it was coming into contact with the superconcentrated weekiller that had been spilled at work that caused it. witnessed by another member of staff. I have notes from the interviews showing that they both refused to investigate and did not allow it to be put into accident book. After the incident I suffered ill health for several months, all of which are know to be sideeffects of coming into contact witht his type of chemical.
2. The charge I am facing now of gross conduct relates to 22/2/10, the factfinding investigation was ordered on 27/4/10.
3. The charge is that I deliberatly made a false statement, dishonest conduct in that I falsified a timesheet.
4. the timesheet in question shows a start time of 7.30, was not completed or checked by myself, no exit time and no claim for the hours.
5. the normal procedure for dealing with errors on timesheets is for it to be brought up at teambriefs by the hr and for the people to be told to fix them, or for the hr person to contact them in person. My older timesheets show lots of corrections of times for various reasons normally claiming more hours due to being asked to stay back after signing out[overtime]. The investigating manager also stated this in a recorded interview. timesheets are not always available due to the hr person having them or locking them in her office. No other member of staff has ever been investigated or had allegations against them for errors on their timesheet at this branch despite them being quite commonplace.
6. I have never been accused of dishonesty or making false statements in the past.
7. the day in question I was late in due to snow[rural area] buses were cancelled, I arrived at work 8am approx 1 hour after I normally do starttime was 7.30am. I contacted the manager prior to my shift to inform them buses were not running.
8. I was the only person in out of the 4 guys that normally do all the heavy stock movements, which meant everything had to be moved by hand instead of using powered machines by myself. very chaotic day to say the least.
9. On arrival at work I was given an informal action which recorded my time in and was signed, it clealry states I made contact before my shift and I was thanked for making the effort to come in.
10. This was my last day there as I had surgery the following morning which meant I was off for 2 months.

pictish

With regards to the H&SE, I have contacted them, their guidance clealry states it should have been included in the accident book, but that is not law.
They passed me through to their RIDDOR team specialist who stated it should have been passed to them as well, that is apparently an offence.

sorry about the posts I keep getting errors when submitting, think I have to agree with the walkaway advice now, 6 other members of staff have also left recently due to the new management. It is a shame as the store team was made up of mainly older people, who were ex-tradesman and worked really well together, they are now being replaced by people who have no DIY or product knowledge at all. An example the current attitude of the new management is that one of the managers recieved an award for being one of highest scored in the company for staff engagement, she was given a dressing down in front of staff for this being a bad thing and she was clearly too friendly with staff to score so high.

thanks for your help
garry

Fire_Fox

Have you got evidence of all the times you phoned in to work - itemised phone bills for example? If you have not signed the incorrect timesheet I don't see what their evidence is?

pictish

Yes, phonecalls all logged either on home bill or mobile, multiple witnesses to the visits.

timesheet was not completed we dont sign them, we just have to put in hours claimed daily and total for week, neither was done.

mayb_2

I can't help thinking you have all the evidence you need to bring a case but you would have to complete any internal processes first as you can't claim unfair dismissal until dismissed. However, if the company is a large one and if they are determined to cut staff any way they can, they will also have the backing of solicitors and may well have checked what they are likely to be able to get away with within employment law.

When claiming constructive dismissal the onus is on you to show that you had no choice but to leave and the case is yours to prove. With unfair dismissal the employer has to show he had a fair reason for dismissing you and dismissal was a reasonable response to whatever behaviour and another reasonable employer would have acted in the same way.

My Tribunal Judge felt it was reasonable for me to be dismissed even though I had had a 5 year record of exemplary performance and behaviour, because of the breakdown in trust and confidence. This is a notion with a very wide scope and can incorporate just about anything the employer choses it to mean.

What I am saying here is that a Tribunal is a lottery and you may get one type of Judge or you may get another. Some are very hot on procedures but some are not. The other thing to be wary of is your witnesses not coming up with the goods because they fear for their own jobs. Again my witnesses were told things like - remember who pays your wages, you will never be made a Manager unless you keep out of this. In the end, not everyone will have the courage to speak out so try and get something in writing from them before commiting yourself to anything.

I am not saying you should not go to Tribunal if you get dismissed but I am saying take an offer of settlement if you get one as at least you have avoided the Tribunal and its aftermath. Speak to ACAS and perhaps CAB too and find out what your rights are and what actions they would recommend you take. Don't do this alone as they will tie you up in legal knots.

The other issue comes under Industrial/Personal Injury and you would also need to take advice on the best way to pursue that too.