Friend got fired - any rights?

Noctu

Hi all,
Firstly if this is in the wrong place please feel free to move this thread.

My friend has worked for a small-ish company for 10 months.

Around 3 months ago she sadly miscarried her baby - she knew she was pregnant but miscarried about 2 months in.

As you can probably imagine it has affected her badly and since then she has been off work sporadically with depression - a day or two here and there I think, and perhaps a full week or two. She told her manager everything and she has had all the sick notes etc she needed.

On Thursday her manager called her into his office and told her she was fired due to the amount of time she'd had off sick.

I thought this was a bit iffy but don't know the law behind this. Is this illegal? Surely they can't fire her for being sick, when she has sick notes to cover her? I thought maybe she didn't have many rights because she hadn't been there for a year, but friends have told me otherwise.

I'm going to give her the number for ACAS, but is there any advice anyone can give us for the time being? Is it worth pursuing?

Thanks.

njc12

Hi - this is awful.People with more employment law knowledge will be along soon but I have just been through something similar. Generally people do have to be been with a company for 12 months to claim unfair or constructive dismissal. However, this is different if the dismissal is triggered by discrimination - maybe this could be proven as the miscarriage is the root cause of her absence and only women will suffer a miscarriage.

It is definitely worth ringing ACAS - I found them to be very useful.

njc12 x

Bean_Counter

I guess acas or citizens advice is a good a place to start as any.

The key question I believe is whether she has been sacked on grounds of sex dicrimination i.e. is she taking off because of the miscarriage, which obviously wouldn't happen to man. I don't know enough to make a definitive statement, which is where acas etc might help. If this is true, she would have grounds for wrongful dismissal, as there is no minimum term of employment for sex dicrimination.

However, if this is not the case, she may well have no come back on the company as she has been employed for less than a year.

MortgageMamma

Yes it is completely illegal to fire someone for the amount of time they have been off sick. Did her employer give her written notification including the reason for dismissal? I expect not as they will likely know the consequences. If there have been no disciplinary measures and she's done everything by the book previous to this she has a good case.

Fleago

MortgageMamma wrote: »

Yes it is completely illegal to fire someone for the amount of time they have been off sick.

Sorry to contradict you MortgageMamma (it seems so rude to! ), but employers can legally dismiss employees for the amount of time they have been off sick. However, there are certain things they are legally obliged to consider and/or do before doing so.

Noctu, ACAS is the right direction to point your friend in, or, if she is a member, to her Union.

Fleago

Broken_hearted

The likelyhood is they will fire her for something else (in writing anyway).

ckerrd

Certainly worth pursuing. Is there a Union and/or a rep she can speak to?

If events happened as you describe them then her employer is in the wrong.

It may well be that she can be dismissed, but not simply be called in and told "thats it" becasue she has been off work ill.

As others have said ACAS are very good

bunty109

If she has only worked for this Company for 10 months then they may feel thaey can get away with dismissing her as her employment is less than a year.

However, the reason may constitute unfair dismissal which might not be covered by the 1 year employment rule and I would urge she calls the ACAS helpline to get advice.

Without wishing to diss the CAB, ACAS are the people she needs to speak to as they are specialists in employment. I've found them really useful in the past.

Bean_Counter

The statutory disciplinary & grievance procedures would still need to be applied. I did not find anything on the acas website to the contrary due to length of service.

Have a look at this link as well.

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=820

withabix

Your rights change considerably when you attain 1 year's service.

I don't actually think they've done anything illegal here, sorry.

You can be fired for being off sick too much I'm afraid.

My employer uses 'The Bradford Score' system.

http://www.incomesdata.co.uk/studies/bradford.htm

Too many sickies and you can be fired basically.

ailuro2

We have a verbal then written warnings system before people are fired.How it affects people with less than a year with the company I don't know.