suspended from work today

Googlewhacker

K_P83 wrote: »

You say you get paid the same. That's fine. Does your timesheet not state when you started/finished on each day though?

I see too much of this at my own place anyway. The employer giving the instruction that "when it comes down to it" can land the employee in trouble.

Then "when it comes down to it" the employee has nothing but a verbal instruction, and the employer has done their homework & although guilty of dirty tricks, has covered their backside - so in a tribunal they'll be the ones who look good & not the employee.

Wrong, but it happens.

Then the employee comes on MSE & asks for help & can be made to feel like THEY are the 100% guilty party. When just because the employer has been crafty, it doesn't mean they're clean.

EDIT: That last sentence doesn't happen all the time i should point out.

You must be unlucky because I would suspect that happens less than an employee taking an employer to an ET maliciously.

Anyway OP as no one has asked it yet....how long have you worked for the company?

getmore4less

Does the grant funding require all new pipework?

If it does then you have the evidence this has not been done in the past.

if not it seems to be down to them proving you are nicking the pipes.

can you trace the pipe checked out against that used on the jobs

If others use the same loaded van then will the relevent record exist.


How are the jobs priced.

bigdek

ohreally wrote: »

Its a big jump from you not using materials on some jobs to being a thief - is this accusation simply an assumption on the employers part or are they claiming some form of evidence.

zero evidence and there wont be

The times on you job lines are pretty much irrelevant in terms of fraudulent activity given you get price work anyway - why are they getting precious over this when there is no apparent mileage in it?

no idea . i belive this is the only possible thing they can tey and get us on even though we dont have a start or finish time and get paid the same every day

You say "we have done this numerous times under the instruction of our managers who deny this". Is this standard working practice carried out by all the fitters or only you? If everyone does this and its common knowledge, it may be possible to contest this allegation.

this is done from time to time by all fitters and is common knowledge

sometime on our job paper work it tells to to reuse certain sections of old pipework

its all a double standard

i have been with them 4 and a half years

bigdek

s_b wrote: »

make sure you have never had a weigh in of company property as certainly at my local non ferrous place photos and registrations are noted even if you dont take the receipt
you will need to be squeaky clean or they might use the opportunity to report you to the police for theft of their property
i know this because someone i know was doing it a few years ago and this is what they did

me?
i would see a solicitor first thing in the morning and talk straight to him

good luck
and all the best

we scrap pipe every month

we are allowed to keep all scrap removed from the job

nothing dodgy going on

Cabbagewhite

You need to see a solicitor straight away - look on the Law Society website and find one who specialises in employment law. From what you have described, the re-use of acceptable pipework and scrapping is common practice, it happens where my Husband works and I know it happens elsewhere and has done for years. With regard to how they pay you, are you sure you are PAYE, do they deduct NIC or just tax? What you have described is pricework, you get paid a set amount per job regardless of how long it takes. If they have given you a contract, which if you are employed they should have done, read it through now - the solicitor will want to see it anyway. If this has been common practice across the company they haven't really got a leg to stand on, because they will have to prove otherwise at a tribunal, if it goes that far. An employment tribunal works differently to standard English law - the (ex)employee takes the employer to the tribunal, they are accused of unfair dismissal for example, it is then up to the employer to prove that they are innocent (instead of innocent until proven guilty).

They may well want to get rid of you for whatever reason and you may not want to work for them any more any way. I would be looking for the equivalent of a redundancy payment at least. Getting a solicitor should make them realise that you are not just going to accept it. I hope it gets sorted.

SarEl

I'm sorry but it isn't a lack of sympathy on my part - it is that your defence is full of holes. They may be truthful holes, but they are holes nevertheless, and they make a successful tribunal claim very unlikely.

bigdek wrote: »

this is done from time to time by all fitters and is common knowledge Common knowledge is not evidence of management instruction. The fact that "everyone does it" is not a defence against an allegation. Your collegaues are not going to be queuing up to confirm that "everyone does it", (a) because they will be admitting to the fact that they do it and therefore opening themselves to disciplinary action, and (b) are very unlikely to want to give evidence against their employer.

sometime on our job paper work it tells to to reuse certain sections of old pipework This actually strengthens managements case! Where reusing sections of old pipework is appropriate there is an instruction to do so, given in writing, In the absence of such an instruction, they will argue, then you replace.

Acc72

bigdek wrote: »

called in today for a facts investigation meeting and suspended at the end of it

First question is : are you in a Union ?

If you visit a solicitor, make sure you have a copy of your companys disciplinary procedures, a copy of any notes from the above meeting and/or investigation, plus any other "evidence" to support that you were acting on management instructions.

How did this situation come about ? - what made your employer check?

Are they actually accusing you of stealing the new pipe or "fiddling your hours" ?

By this I mean, if you get the same amount of pay per day irrespective of how long the job takes, then it is in your interest to finish the job as soon as possible.

Are they alleging that you have been finishing early because you have only replaced part of the pipework (eg not done a full job) and are still claiming for a full days pay ?

I assume that your work is certified (CORGI / Safe Gas), to show that what you have done is actually safe practice?

How is the new pipe recorded - eg. is it booked out of stock and then recorded to a specific job? (i.e. can you do a full audit trail to prove that you booked 10 metres of pipe and this was used on jobs x, y, and z or whatever - to show that all materials were used on jobs ?)

Rather than just focusing on "management told us to do this" - for which there is no evidence (and will put your employer on the back foot), if you can prove that all your work was safe, that you followed all the regulations etc. and also that you can prove exactly how much pipe was used and what jobs this was used on, then this would be a better form of defence.

nashly

Maybe the people who issue the grant payments to your company have inspected some of the companies jobs and have pulled them up over it and you are the fall guys for their fraud ?

Jarndyce

Acc72 wrote: »

Rather than just focusing on "management told us to do this" - for which there is no evidence (and will put your employer on the back foot), if you can prove that all your work was safe, that you followed all the regulations etc. and also that you can prove exactly how much pipe was used and what jobs this was used on, then this would be a better form of defence.

No it wouldn't.

The OP is being investigated for "stealing and fraud", not for installing unsafe pipework. Whether or not it is safe is a completely different and for these purposes irrelevant issue. The OP needs to concentrate on refuting the allegations made against them, ie that they were stealing, and not just say "Yes but look at how safe it is"!

Acc72

Jarndyce wrote: »

No it wouldn't.

The OP is being investigated for "stealing and fraud", not for installing unsafe pipework. Whether or not it is safe is a completely different and for these purposes irrelevant issue. The OP needs to concentrate on refuting the allegations made against them, ie that they were stealing, and not just say "Yes but look at how safe it is"!

I do not disagree with what you are saying, however I may not have explained what I was trying to say very well.

At the moment, the sole defence seems to be "acting on management instructions" - as there is no proof of this (and the fact that management are denying making such instructions), what I am saying is that the OP needs to also come up with something else to help his defence.

As you say, he is accused of "stealing and fraud".

With regards to "stealing" - I have asked if it is possible to provide a reconciliation of the pipes booked out of stock and used on jobs.

This is surely fundamental ? - if the OP can show that he booked 10 metres of pipe out of stock and that these were used on specific jobs (eg. job A = 3m, job B =2m, job c= 4m, with 1m still in van), then surely there was nothing left over to steal ?

With regards to "fraud" - it appears that the fraud element is the fact that the OP has booked doing a job and has been paid for doing a job, but is in fact suspected of not doing a "full-job" (i.e. by not replacing all of the pipes).

In addition to (hopefully) showing instructions that not all the pipes need to be replaced, if the OP can show that all jobs were completed to the correct standard then they are full / proper jobs and that he was not just doing parts of a job in order to finish early.