Discrimination at work (long story)

MrRedundant

At the end of the day if its all so unfounded why has the HR department of a massive company allowed it to happen, I am afraid that just wouldnt have happened.

Whether you agree or not its likely there was at least some grounds to the decision to involve a discliplinary. Ultimately if its so unfair your appeal will suceed then you can raise a grievance, or, you could do yourself and your employers a favour and leave. I highly doubt your popular with your colleagues with the attitude you have displayed on here.

Emmzi

are you sure the contract says "no outside interests" or "no outside interests without agreement" and how can you be sure it is in colleague's contract and that she hasn't arranged an exemption without snooping in files you should not have been?

dmg24

You keep mentioning discrimination - what type of discrimination are you referring to?

celinepatricia

I havnt seen any bad attitude on here from anonymous27.. I was wondering if you were a friend of his boss though

Emmzi

oh by the way - any solicitor may say you have a case when you are about to pay them.

the measure for me is can you get a no win no fee solicitor to take you on?

SarEl

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I am struggling to see what claim you could bring before an employment tribunal in these circumstances (unless you are thinking of resigning and claiming constructive dismissal which - in my view - would be unlikely to succeed).

I must entirely agree. I am sure that I am going to regret saying this on here, but of course the solicitor is going to tell you that they believe you have a case. There is an excellent reason for that, and it has nothing to do with whether you have a case! You have money - and you are willing to pay the bill. Some lawyers will happily run up bills for you - it does not mean for one minute that you have a case sufficent to win a constructive dismissal claim when less that 3% of such claimants ever do win! They will get paid (by you) no matter what happens to your case, no matter how long it drags on for, and very handsomely paid no doubt. No Win No Fee lawyers get a bad press, often earned, but they have the grace of being hopelessly transparent - they simply won't take a case that won't stand a good chance of winning and earning them their fees.

I think you certainly need better legal advice before resigning, and I think you need to get real about what you are letting yourself in for. I have already told you that your chances of winning constructive unfair dismissal is very low, and the burden of proof will be on you throughout that you had no other possible route to take other than to resign in response to a breach of contract by the employer. A breach that I am struggling to see based on what you have said here. You will wait 6 - 9 months at least before your case is held. During which time you will be likely to be out of work - if things are so bad, the simplest answer for you would have been to find another job and the fact that you haven't tends to indicate that there may not be a lot of opportunities around now at your level. And that is before the word gets out that you have made such a claim - it does get out and it may not impress potential employers.

But lets say that you are one of the very very lucky few who a tribunal agrees with. The maximum award you will get went down this year - it's £65,300. So just over a years wages - most of which will be down the swanee during the nearly a year you wait for the case to be heard and a hell of a lot of it on the legal bills you are paying.

So please please don't think this is a walk in the park - I haven't even begun on how stressful it will be, or just how far the employer will go to blacken your name. But plenty of people arounfd here will be happy to explain it to you

And if you think I am telling you this to put you off - I am not. Like zzzLazyDaisy, I am a lawyer, and I only ever represent employees, so I am no friend of employers and what some of them may do. These are the facts - and facts that nobody should consider making any form of tribunal claim never mind one the hardest ones going, without giving a lot of thought to.

SarEl

Emmzi wrote: »

oh by the way - any solicitor may say you have a case when you are about to pay them.

the measure for me is can you get a no win no fee solicitor to take you on?

You beat me to it!

SarEl

anonymous27 wrote: »

..this whole thing started out with him googling me and him choosing to have an investigatory meeting and him sending me to a disciplinary etc.

thanks guys.

anonymous27 wrote: »

...My username was flowerpower and I never mentioned my name, my employer or any of the staff I worked with. The only way he found this gardening forum was because he googled me one day!!!!

I am no doubt being dense, but how could he google you and find this gardening forum when you used an anonymous user name, and did not mention the employer or any of the staff. If this is a new feature of Google, could someone explain to me how it works?