employment - disciplinary meeting.

moonrakerz

brazilianwax wrote:

Not true. It covers anything the company holds with you/your name on it including paperfiles, letters, faxes, video, CCTV and audio matter.

You have to pay £10 and allow 40 working days for a DPA response though.

Claire

Sorry ! not all of what I thought I posted actually appeared

What it should have said was.

DPA covers data held on computers and personal data held in structured manual files. Whether that covers audio tapes is perhaps debatable.

.

avfc78

UPDATE:

I sent:
Dear XXXXXXXXXXX,



RE: Disciplinary Meeting 12 January 2007



I was disappointed to receive the letter, and the 'first written warning' sanction that was contained therein. I will consider in the coming days whether to appeal this or not.



Please can you provide to me:



1.) a full, unedited audio recording of the meeting.

2.) copies of all (approximately eight stapled sets of papers) documents that were presented to me in the said meeting as 'evidence' substantiating the accusations made against me



Thank you for your help in this matter.

the reply i had was:

Please, come to my office after lunch so that you can sign the minutes that I took.



Best regards J



i then wrote:

With respect XXXXXXXXX, I am not interested in your minutes. I would like the two things that I requested in the first email. (listed below) I appreciate that these might not be available immediately, and that is absolutely fine.



Similarly, if you would like me to contribute towards the cost of reproducing these documents, please let me know.

theresponse was:

Dear David,



Signing the minutes is a different thing. You can read them through and then sign, so that we all agree in the same text.



With regards to the other documentation that you requested:



1.) a full, unedited audio recording of the meeting. You brought a recorder to the meeting and you should have the tape already, don’t you? I am afraid that in the company we don’t have the proper equipment to copy the tape, that is why minutes are done so that we all agree on them. However, if you could provide us with the proper equipment to make the copy of the tape, there is no problem in you taking a copy at all. Just bring the equipment to the office and we will proceed to copy the tape for you and provide you with a sample.



2.) copies of all (approximately eight stapled sets of papers) documents that were presented to me in the said meeting as 'evidence' substantiating the accusations made against me. I suppose that XXXXXXXXX (my manager) should have no problem photocopying that information for you. And the company will cover the costs of these photocopies.





I hope that this is satisfactory with you.



Please advise me when you both are coming to sign the minutes so that I can have everything ready for you.



David, any extra help that you may need, please let me know and I will do my best, or refer to XXXXXXXX.

avfc78

what should be my next move? advise please.

dmg24

Read the minutes. If they are correct, sign them and take a copy. If they are not correct, ask for a copy and prepare a written statement as to what points you are disputing.

Who brought the tape recorder - you or your employer? Their response says that it was you. Confused!

firesidemaid

hi again.

they should have got you to sign the minutes at the end of your original meeting - as a true agreed record of what went on.

there is always the possibility that you will not agree with them (especially if it was a little while ago). but this is their problem - it was their responsibility to get this done at the time.

even more need therefore for you to have a copy of the tape. i would ask if you can have the time and a quiet room to listen to the copy of their tape. so then you can agree to sign the minutes (or not). this way you will also know that they definitely do have a copy of the tape.

you also need to request a copy of their disciplinary policy. this will show you what should have happened and what will happen next.

do you remember i asked you 'did they tell you that you could have someone with you at the meeting?' did they? it is a very important point. if they did not, then everything may be null and void. (just don't tell them that you have this knowledge about employment law).

when you do have the evidence, let us know what it consists of, when it was written, who by etc....

avfc78

i was given the documents by my manager before 6pm today. (that were 'sprung' on me at the meeting. These documents will help my appeal. I have been told that the company will give me a copy of the audio recording if i bring in equipment to record it. should this onus be on me? can i not request this, and expect the company to provide me this on their own?

I was given the opportunity to be accompanied at the meeting, but was not - and no attempt was made to get me to sign any minutes at the end of the minute - and there does seem to be discrepencies from what i have read and what i remember - hence the need for an audio recording.

On a seperate note - one of the charges against me was 'dishonestly claiming expenses' - namely being reimbursed £18 for an eye test that my employee handbook states that i am entitled to as i am a vdu operator. The company state that i had already claimed this as part of a mystery shopping assignment - my questions are twofold:

firstly, would it have been relevant had i already been reimbursed this figure? Is it not simply a perk of the job-like gym membership or whatever. incidently, i was not reimbursed money for doing a mystery shopping assignment. secondly, a staff member from my company had contacted the mystery shopping company that i do undertake jobs for and made enquiries abut me behind my back - apparently, the MS company discussed me and my mystery shopping activities wihout my consent!!!

Nobleck

Don't sign anything.
Have you ever been given a verbal warning?
Ask to see the companies disciplanary procedure and make sure it was followed to the exact wording. If it was not , then you will be pleased to know that the whole process you have been through is void as they have not followed their own policy.
Contest the warning straight away, it sounds to me that they are playing with your time limit.
The process should go:
Verbal Warning
Written Warning
Final Written Warning
The Boot.
The first 3 can be overridden by the term Gross Misconduct(usually if you are caught stealing, or beating up fellow colleagues)
If you are in a Union now is the time to use it!!
DO NOT DELAY.

katecheshire

avfc78 wrote:

thanks for everyones input. Should i offer the £10 up - or just request the recording. Also - before the meeting i was sent the letter instructing me to attend and oulining the key accusations. I replied to this prior to the meeting asking to have copies of any documents that were to be used against me. I had a reply saying that none existed - yet at the meeting, about 7 emails were produced in the case against me

so.......

a) they had been snooping over my emails - some of which are clearly not work matter (and obviously not illegal activities or anything) - and b) these documents were sprung on me at the meeting, and i was unprepared

Can i ask for copies of these emails?

were they wrong also doing these two things / should i make a big deal out of this?

Does your company have an 'acceptable use' policy as regards the use of company equipment - eg if you use company computer to send or receive personal emails? Have you been shown this policy, as part of any induction or staff training? If there is a policy, it is likely that it will state that there is no expectation of privacy when using emails. This would mean that your company are within their rights to look at any of your emails. However, you would be entitled to ask to see the emails in question. The same applies to using the internet eg 'surfing' - this may be allowed in your own time ie lunch or breaks but not during expected work hours. You may wish to note the time of any of the items they are questioning. Also if you have used the internet, while sites may not be illegal, if they are not work related your company may wonder why you have time to visit these sites during work time.
You might also want to consider how serious this situation actually is - would you be better off acepting a 'slapped wrist' than creating further problems for yourself.
Speaking from experience as a manager of some people who recently experienced a similar problem (the activities took place several months ago and were not, in my opinion, serious) I advised them, when faced with evidence to just hold their hands up and say 'yes I did it, Sorry, it won't happen again'. They received a letter which will be kept in their file for 3 years. As far as the company is concerned, as long as nothing else happens, the matter is closed.
If you feel that the acusations are more serious, you should seek advice from your union (if you are in one) or the CAB. You need to be clear about exactly what you are being accused of, whether you accept that you did what you are being accused of and what the consequences are for you. Your company should have a clear disciplinary structure which is available to you.

RibenaBerry_2

"do you remember i asked you 'did they tell you that you could have someone with you at the meeting?' did they? it is a very important point. if they did not, then everything may be null and void. (just don't tell them that you have this knowledge about employment law)."

I'm sorry, but this isn't quite right. Yes, you have a legal right to bring a colleague to a disciplinary (or trade union rep if you have one). If they do not offer you that right, you can complain, but it does not make the warning null and void.

"Ask to see the companies disciplanary procedure and make sure it was followed to the exact wording. If it was not , then you will be pleased to know that the whole process you have been through is void as they have not followed their own policy."

This is not correct either. Failure to follow a policy may make the action that they took unfair in law (e.g. a dismissal may be an unfair dismissal if the disciplinary policy wasn't followed), but nothing is null and void.

I know that people are trying to be helpful, and please no-one take this the wrong way, but as someone who deals with this stuff (for the employee) on a regular basis, my advice would be that you need to focus on the stuff that really matters. Yes, if they won't show you emails that were evidence against you, you should keep asking and raise it in the appeal. If you don't think that the minutes are accurate, you should keep asking for the tapes, but I don't think that raising lots of points of 'procedure' is likely to get you the result you want (which is presumably the removal of the warning). The company will just start to see you as a troublemaker who doesn't want to accept a warning and is trying to get off 'on a technicality'. You are far more likely to get a good result by explaining, in a calm and balanced way, what your concerns are and why you think that the original decision is unfair.

I have to say that I also agree with KateCheshire about looking at the big picture. If you think that most of it is a 'fair cop' then, even if you do not agree with some of the details, I would take the slapped wrist myself. These things have a way of deteriorating into a long and drawn out battle with the employer.

avfc78

ALL advice is appreciated and will help me decide what to do... to reitterate, i was offered the chanve of being accompanied - to made enquiries to join a union, and was told that i could not be assisted rerospectively for stuff that i had been accused of before signing up to the union.

The letter i was given informing me of my warning merely relayed the charges, my responses and the punishment. I can only assume that i have been found guilty of the charges, although the letter does not say so.

I honestly feel that the charges are baseless, and that a person independant of the situaion would see this.

The minutes are not accurate - approximate, but not accurate.

The situation is slightly confused by the fact that my manager (accusor) is leaving the company in just over a weeks time. (i think she wanted to get a 'cheap shot' in on me prior to leaving - she also promoted a less able colleague to a senior position in the last two months) I have a good relationship with the branch director (who would be appealed to) and think that his objectivity would have this (warning) removed.

I want this removed, and am not hugely concerned about peoples ongoing perception of me - as i might move on in the coming months anyway - hence not wanting a disciplinary issue on my record.

oh, one more thing - within he disciplinary procedure - it says that the company reseves the right to go to any stage of the procedure at any time during a disciplinary matter - in this instance they have bypassed the 'formal verbal stage'