appeals - the law

silkyuk9

I'm helping a member that's been fired. The person feels this was not fair. and in the dismissal letter was given a week to appeal. In the letter it was stated that if this person wanted any other information just ask.

Ok, ive found some things that were possibly illegal.

Now these were mentioned in the letter back to the company obviously along with the request for a appeal.

The company has not been in touch (this is a large company in the UK) with the person who was fired. I think they know that there has been mistakes in the sacking and a possible breech of public data.

What is the law regarding appeals? The person in question needs to write back informing them that they have not been in contact for a appeal hearing.

I cant call ACAS as its Saturday but the person wants this letter in the post by Monday morning.

hawk30

There is no 'law' as regards appeals. How long has the employee worked there? What do you mean by 'illegal'.

silkyuk9

The employee has only worked there for around 5 months. Was dismissed over an incident but has appealed that decision. In the dismissal letter this person was told they could appeal within 7 days. This has been done. However in the letter the person has asked for some answers to questions such as what was the reason for being sacked. why was the reason classed as GM (cant go into too much details)

One thing that did seem odd was a security guard looking through cctv footage, without being asked to do so by store managers etc trying to find anything that looked odd or that was reportable. The thing here is also that this person gave a security guard a knockback but that is by and by.

A security guard can look through cctv footage if licenced, this is a public supermarket (one of the top 4) but its illegal to operate cctv if not licenced by the Security Industry Authority, so im thinking also a security guard sat in a op's room looking through cctv footage is also illegal to do without prior request from any manager. This was one of the questions, was the security guard licenced to view and operate cctv cameras.

The person involved admits to mistakes, but the mistakes were not sackable really.

The employer who invited an appeal has not replied after 7 days.

agrinnall

Doesn't matter whether the mistakes warranted sacking or not, having worked there for only 5 months they can be dismissed without any reason being required, as long as the dismissal doesn't contravene one of the protected group rules. Nothing in your post suggests that is the case here.

heretolearn_2

Sorry to say but I think you are grasping at straws with the whole security guard angle. I'm sure their job includes reviewing CCTV when they deem it necessary and there is a standing permission for them to do so - it would be pretty daft to have security staff who have to run off to a manager for permission to do their job each time they want to.

On the dismissal - the employer is not obliged to provide any reason during the first 12 months of employment. And there is no protection against unfair dismissal for the first 2 years of employment unless you believe you have been dismissed for discriminatory reasons (race, gender etc) and can prove it.Just feeling it was unfair or unwarranted is no good.

On the appeal, your friend should contact them about this. But few are successful, and unless there is new/different information your friend can produce, they'll just review the same information and come up with the same conclusion. Whether or not your friend's 'mistakes' are sackable or not is up to the employer.

browneyedbazzi

Just to clarify your point about the CCTV- you do need to be SIA licensed to monitor live CCTV feeds but no such licence is required to view historical footage. If the unlicensed security guard was reviewing footage after the fact then they haven't done anything wrong. You also wouldn't expect a security guard to need to be specifically asked to check CCTV footage as it would usually be part of their role.

When you say this person had given the security guard a 'knockback' what do you actually mean?

Also, what did the sacked party actually do? They might not feel it amounts to gross misconduct but others (including the employer) may well have a different standard in terms of what they consider gross misconduct. Some people think petty theft from an employer or fiddling time accounts (ie saying you worked longer than you have) is no big deal and only warrants a warning, whereas a lot of employers would consider that sort of thing gross misconduct. Your friend may need to accept that what they did was wrong, the sacking was right and they need to move on and adjust their perception of what is acceptable in the workplace.