Security guard agency terminated employment out of the blue with email

Junis

After working for around 7 months for a security guard agency, they sent me an email yesterday and informed me that my employment has terminated. In the email they said that the termination date was 1 week notice. Isn't this too short? The reason for the termination they gave in the email was 'budget cuts'. They alleged that the store for which they were providing security guard services, could not afford to have a security guard such as me working there - even though I am on the minimum living wage. This security guard agency never paid me for more than 3 days holiday in 2016 and reneged from paying for an additional 5 days holidays during the 2016 Christmas period - which was approved by the local management of the store. After reading this, do you think that not only am I the victim of unfair and premature employment termination but also insufficient wage through withheld holiday pay ? Someone suggested that I should read the Terms and Condition of my employment contract. However, when I started working at this security guard agency, I cannot remember them giving me any papers regarding this.

w00519772

I am no Employment Law expert, however I have read plenty of posts on here stating that you have no employment rights for the first two years i.e. it appears that the employer can terminate your employment for any reason unless you can prove that you were discriminated against in terms of: sex, religion, ethnic origin etc.

With regards to your second question; what does your employment contract say about holidays? If you did not receive the contractual amount specified in the contract then I would question it. If you don't have a copy of the contract of employment/terms and conditions then you could ask for another copy (some employers charge an admin fee for it).

da_rule

What does your contract say about notice periods?

In the first two years you can only really claim wrongful dismissal. That is that the employer acted in breach of your contract. If the contract says only 1 weeks notice then that is fine. Even if it said longer, you are limited to claiming only what you are owed. So if the contract says two weeks notice you can only claim for the extra weeks pay.

Unfortunately unfair dismissal doesn't kick in until you have been employed for two years (unless the dismissal is due to a protected characteristic such as disability).

da_rule

If the contract doesn't say anything about notice then the statutory notice periods will apply. This is one week for a period of employment of longer than one month but less than 2 years and 2 weeks notice for any period of 2 years or more.

patman99

Don't forget. You may be on NMW, but once you add-on agency fees, you will be costing the store £18 p/hr (or even more).

If the store employed you directly, their costs would be much lower.
Hence, you may well find that when you visit the store in the future, they may hve a directly employed security gaurd in place.