Facing the sack after being accused of bullying and harrasment by a 12 year old.

LittleVoice

RacyRed wrote: »

Lets face it - taking good legal cover with your home insurance is effectively the same as union membership for those of us working in unrepresented workplaces?
.

Can you let us know, please, of the "good legal cover" with a home insurance policy which will be able to provide someone to accompany the insured person to workplace meetings and help complete paperwork for employment tribunals and so on?

RacyRed

LittleVoice wrote: »

Can you let us know, please, of the "good legal cover" with a home insurance policy which will be able to provide someone to accompany the insured person to workplace meetings and help complete paperwork for employment tribunals and so on?

Legal cover pays for legal costs, so if the situation is covered by the policy it should cover the costs of a solicitor to assist in all aspects of the case; including accompanying, or more specifically, representing the insured person when necessary?

I've not done this personally but have worked with a couple of people who have. Unfortunately I do not know who their policies were with. Although in both cases their solicitors got good results for them, it was in the form of a decent settlement, rather than a return to work.

Edited to add:

I seem to have stirred something of a hornets nest here when all I was trying to do was point out that union membership is not always as easy as signing on the dotted line. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this is even in dispute?

The responses I'm getting are reminding me of those I got from the union who inadvertently let my employer find out I was a member. Yes, I know I have rights but I am also a realist and don't necessarily want to be a martyr to someone else's beliefs!

dickydonkin

RacyRed wrote: »

Legal cover pays for legal costs, so if the situation is covered by the policy it should cover the costs of a solicitor to assist in all aspects of the case; including accompanying, or more specifically, representing the insured person when necessary?

I've not done this personally but have worked with a couple of people who have. Unfortunately I do not know who their policies were with. Although in both cases their solicitors got good results for them, it was in the form of a decent settlement, rather than a return to work.

RacyRed - My wife used a solicitor that was financed by our home insurance for unfair dismissal (Prudential). Ironically it was against her former employer who had the stipulation in the contract of employment requiring disclosure of union membership, although this was totally unrelated to the dispute. I did however discover this clause when I was scrutinising her contract following her dismissal.

Although I did all of the groundwork for her claim, once it was assessed that there was a likelihood of success (over 70% in this case), the solicitor then dealt with the proceedings up to the tribunal, however as I alluded to earlier, it was remedied one week prior to the hearing.

The insurers were going to provide their own solicitor however they did allow the selection of our own provided they met the required criteria - which they did.

I did not have to pay any excess and the billing/payments were all taken care of by the Pru who were really good throughout the process.

I dont think it is an acceptable term of contract personally Dpassmore

lynzpower I totally agree with you, however I suspect that as the company had this contract drawn up by their lawyers, this leads me to believe that the inclusion of such a stipulation and signed as accepted by the employee may be legal.

It is the employers actions following such a disclosure that may be open to scrutiny however.

Can you let us know, please, of the "good legal cover" with a home insurance policy which will be able to provide someone to accompany the insured person to workplace meetings and help complete paperwork for employment tribunals and so on?

I certainly had 'good legal cover' as indicated above and although it is unlikely that an insurer will provide a solicitor to attend 'workplace meetings' (even if an employer allowed this) they will 'complete paperwork' and undertake every other aspect of a tribunal - provided there is a reasonable chance of success.

Being a union member involved with a grievance or dispute does not guarantee that the union will provide a solicitor should the matter escalate.

Like many organisations, they are cash strapped and as we are all aware, progressing an employment dispute can be very expensive and many unions will balk at the potential of protracted legal action. They may provide a full time official or union rep to assist, but with respect to those people who do a sterling job, they are a poor substitute for a solicitor who specialises in employment law.

I believe that for the sake of a few extra quid on the price of a home insurance policy - it can turn out to be money well spent.

I'd go further and say that there is a good argument that insisting an employee signs a contract containing such a clause is in itself discriminatory, simply because there can be no good reason for the employer to want or need to keep a record of which employees are in a union, and it suggests that the employer views them in someway different to employees who are not uniom members.

zzzLazyDaisy - Excellent perspective on this. Although in wasn't a unionised workplace, I wonder if it was an attempt to monitor any influx of union membership as the business grew.

zzzLazyDaisy

RacyRed wrote: »

Legal cover pays for legal costs, so if the situation is covered by the policy it should cover the costs of a solicitor to assist in all aspects of the case; including accompanying, or more specifically, representing the insured person when necessary?

I think that Little Voice is making the point that an employee is only entitled to be accompanied by a TU rep or a work colleague, at workplace disciplinary and grievance hearings, not a solicitor, so legal cover would be of no help at that stage.

WhiteHorse

dpassmore wrote: »

Would that also apply even if the disclosure requirement was incorporated into the contract of employment which was signed and agreed by the employer? This was the situation with my wife.

I am aware that an employer cannot discriminate against union membership - but this element of the contract (although suspicious) is surely not an illegal request.

Good question, not sure of the answer. I suspect however that such a contractual term would not stand up in court.

WhiteHorse

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I think that Little Voice is making the point that an employee is only entitled to be accompanied by a TU rep or a work colleague, at workplace disciplinary and grievance hearings, not a solicitor ...

What happens if the person is not a union member and no work colleague will accompany them (a common situation in cases of workplace bullying)?

Most disciplinary codes that I have seen only say 'accompanied', although some have specified that a solicitor may not be present (what do they have to hide?).

nicole2216

WhiteHorse wrote: »

What happens if the person is not a union member and no work colleague will accompany them (a common situation in cases of workplace bullying)?

Most disciplinary codes that I have seen only say 'accompanied', although some have specified that a solicitor may not be present (what do they have to hide?).

I am having to attend both my appeall and my 2nd disciplinary on my own as my husband will not be allowed to attend - due to conflict of interest, and my work colleagues are just that work colleagues, they dont want to get involved!!!
I feel confident that I will be ok but im sure the written warning will not be overturned as I have no evidence to produce, due to the fact that no one 'wants to get involved'
Im hoping the 2nd disciplinary will be overuled/cancelled as I dont see why I need a discipline when there has been no other complaint.
I have to see what HR say tomorow when I speak to them, hopefully it will just be changed to 'a meeting' to discuss my move to another site.

All this has caused major arguments in our household with both my 15 year old not enjoying being at home and the poor 12 year old, who had the argument in the first place, feeling she is the cause of all the trouble.

I will just be glad when its all over, and hopefully I go to another site and start afresh.

How can a silly 20hour a week job be sooooo stressfull. This young lady has sooo much to answer to, but what can i do!!!!!!!

Life huh???? :mad:

WhiteHorse

How can you have two disciplinaries (and possibly two penalties) for the same offence? That can't have any legal standing at all. Did both come from your actual employer?

As regards going alone, where does it actually say they won't allow this? Consider a hidden video camera. About £30 off the internet. If they won't play fair, you don't have to either ...

andrewnottingham

I believe that employment law states that you need to have adequate time to prepare ahead of a disciplinary hearing. The amount of time is not specified but most employers give 24hrs as a minimum amount.

As the way you represent yourself in the second disciplinary will depend largely on the outcome of your appeal you should present this as your reason for re-scheduling the 2nd disciplinary. You don't have enough time between the meetings to present a case for yourself.

I would be edging on the side of building a case of constructive dissmisal as from the sound of it your fate has been a foregone conclusion for a long time. Now you need to work on proving that this happened.

Good Luck

Savvy_Sue

I've taken your points out of order, but ...

RacyRed wrote: »

I seem to have stirred something of a hornets nest here when all I was trying to do was point out that union membership is not always as easy as signing on the dotted line. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this is even in dispute?

The responses I'm getting are reminding me of those I got from the union who inadvertently let my employer find out I was a member. Yes, I know I have rights but I am also a realist and don't necessarily want to be a martyr to someone else's beliefs!

I agree that being in the union isn't necessarily always easy, but I was genuinely interested in finding out HOW your employer had found out: and I was shocked! I hope you told them why you were cancelling your membership ...

However this is one area where I think strength lies in numbers: it's far easier for an employer to treat ONE employee badly than it is to treat ALL / MOST / MANY / SEVERAL of them badly over union membership.

RacyRed wrote: »

Legal cover pays for legal costs, so if the situation is covered by the policy it should cover the costs of a solicitor to assist in all aspects of the case; including accompanying, or more specifically, representing the insured person when necessary?

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I think that Little Voice is making the point that an employee is only entitled to be accompanied by a TU rep or a work colleague, at workplace disciplinary and grievance hearings, not a solicitor, so legal cover would be of no help at that stage.

My understanding also.

WhiteHorse wrote: »

What happens if the person is not a union member and no work colleague will accompany them (a common situation in cases of workplace bullying)?

Then they have to go alone. In which case you'd take a large notebook and insist on taking your own notes as well as their official record.

The only disciplinary I've ever been involved in regarded a throwaway comment made by one of my team which someone overheard and reported as racist: I had to present the evidence while a manager considered the situation and response and what action to take. My team member had a colleague there: this colleague had no idea until the session started what it was all about! So there is that option: ask a colleague to come without going into details or expecting them to take your side: I'm quite sure the accompanying colleague was not in favour of making racist comments in the workplace.