Grievance what next

nicechap

Jenjenjenna wrote: »

I wanted advice on what happens after the grievance. I feel like I can't go back For a number of reasons. What happens if I go to tribunal? Can I go to tribunal if it's upheld ? I wasn't asking whether you thought I had a case for going, Or if you thought I was disabled enough to win. I didn't ask do i have enough evidence because you dont know evidence i have. Maybe I originally came across as all I care about is the money but it's furthest from the truth. I have a million thoughts in my head and I was looking for guidance on a path if my employer agreed they acted wrongly. I wasn't looking for the pretend answer but i was looking for a kind one.

That's the first insightful admission I've noted on this thread.


If the tone of your posts here is a reflection of the way you communicate at work I can understand why your employer has chosen to stop allowing you to swap shifts.


If I've understood the flow of things, when you have a flare up, you are not well enough to work as scheduled, that has not being recorded for the last couple of years. Now it will be. A reasonable adjustment might be, instead of 3 periods of sickness in 12 months triggering the managing attendance process, it might be 5 periods (or some other such calculation).


However, you have now refused to work because of this change - its not clear to me whether you are signed off sick at the moment with your arthritis, a new condition, or whether you've just refused to attend. Whatever it is, it will be adding evidence to the employers case - if you were the boss, what would you think of an employee who has behaved as you appear to have?

sangie595

Jenjenjenna wrote: »

I wanted advice on what happens after the grievance. I feel like I can't go back For a number of reasons. What happens if I go to tribunal? Can I go to tribunal if it's upheld ? I wasn't asking whether you thought I had a case for going, Or if you thought I was disabled enough to win. I didn't ask do i have enough evidence because you dont know evidence i have. Maybe I originally came across as all I care about is the money but it's furthest from the truth. I have a million thoughts in my head and I was looking for guidance on a path if my employer agreed they acted wrongly. I wasn't looking for the pretend answer but i was looking for a kind one.

I have kindly answered all those questions. Everything is based on what you said and the law add it stands. I will do so once more, but insult me again and I'm gone. As Nicechap observes, if this is the way you react to not getting what you want, and the way you express yourself, you might want to consider how much you have contributed to this problem.

If your grievance is upheld you go back to work. End of story. The employer has resolved your complaint and that's the end of it. Tribunals aren't about what you like - they are about the law. And that is exactly why you did ask whether you have a case. You can't go to a tribunal because you don't like something or on a whim - you can only go if you have a case. And there is no evidence here that you have a case.

You have no legal right to what you are asking. On the contrary, unless this is done for everyone, it is actually reverse discrimination, which is just as unlawful. If you are ill, that is what sick Leaver is for, and the reasonable adjustment might be some additional days before the trigger point. However, since you say this hardly ever happens anyway, then there is no reason to make any adjustment for you.

As far as things go now, you may have gone too far already. Regardless of anything else, going off sick was a serious miscalculation. "Work related stress" is now notorious - don't get my own way, I'll claim I've got stress. The worst thing you can do is go off sick.

In the employers shoes, if they have any intelligence at all, they'll partially uphold your grievance, let you have your few shifts and not worry about working for the weekend. And tell you to get yourself back to work. You won't. Case closed. You can sit on the sick for ever and a day, until they dismiss you fairly, or resign. As I have already told you.

Alternatively they might cut their losses and offer a settlement, but it is not going to be anything like the figure you clearly have in your head. And before you deny that, you are the one who has said repeatedly that you expect them to compensate you for it being harder to get a job. That isn't going to happen. I've already told you what the average figure for disability discrimination is - if you win.

You are asking what your next step is. You don't appear to realise that this is now way out of your control. Now you may not like the advice I have given you. I really don't give a rat's !!!! whether you do or not. But I can give you an absolute guarantee that it is sound and has been throughout; that I don't need to know about what evidence you have because you've actually told me that you have nothing of import; and, something that I haven't hitherto said, if you think you are stressed now, you have no idea what you will be like a year from now when, approaching a tribunal case, you have a barrister ripping you to shreds, making out you are a gold digger and worse, and you can't get a job because you have no reference. No reference ever. By which time, and again, I'm sorry, but I can pretty much guarantee this, your solicitor, if you ever found one who would represent you, has dumped you when they realise you've got no chance of paying them - and I'll leave it to others here to tell you how often we hear that one around here.

All I've done is tell it you like it is - neither for you nor against you, although you clearly don't realise that. That barrister really will be against you, and they won't be anywhere near as "kind" as I have been!

There's a saying about heat and kitchens - it's true in employment too. If you can't take the heat, don't start a fight you can't finish. This is as close to a fight that you can't finish as it gets, if it isn't already.

FBaby

It can be very hurtful when you've worked for a company for some time, built up a relationship, based on an exchange of the employee working hard in exchange of some flexibility, so that both gain from it, to feel that you are being treated with no consideration because one person comes in and break that relationship.

Unfortunately though, this happens all the the time. Employment is much less a familial environment that it used to be for various reasons. You feel emotional about it, but the legal perspective considers no emotions at all. They won't care any more than the company how it affects you, they will look at what rules/law have been broken.

Maybe you reacted too quickly, taking things to emotionally from the start. It sounds that they have accepted that you wouldn't work weekends, for reasons of childcare and convenience to you rather than your illness. Have you thought that this means another staff member having to do more week-end shifts, when they themselves don't like it and will struggle to do them? Maybe management decided to take your unwritten flexible agreement away not to punish you, but to make it more fair to the others who don't get that special treatment?

As said, it's not as if it would stop you working, you still have the option to go off sick when you get a flare up, like everyone else has to do if they are unwell.

I agree with Sangie that workplaces have to show some fairness to people who are disabled so that can be treated fairly, however, that doesn't mean getting special arrangement that isn't related to their disability when others without disability couldn't possibly hope to get.

Personally, I would ask to meet with your manager and HR and come up with some compromise there and then. Then go back to work and show dedication. It might take a while for the whole thing to be forgotten, but like everything, it will be. You'll still have a job you are familiar with, and hopefully, people will respect your decision to go back.

Or accept that you haven't got a place there any longer and resign and look for another one hoping they will be prepared to offer the flexibility you are hoping for.

Dox

Useful (and non-judgemental/emotional) reading: http://www.landaulaw.co.uk/stress-at-work/

polgara

Backup to the working weekends issue - why can!!!8217;t you do some? You cite childcare - do they not have another parent? Have you family or friends who could help out? If you have tried all alternatives then have you explained that?

Re a tribunal I will say they are nerve-wracking and not for the faint hearted - I was an observer at one of ours recently and my heart rate monitor seemed to think I!!!8217;d been in a 4 hour cardio class.

Nothanks

I'm a Union official, and I like to think a pretty bloody good one by all accounts. I've done it for a while, seen my share of issues.

I aspire to be as good as Sangie.

Listen to Sangie. Your career will thank your pride for backing off in the long run.

Good luck

sangie595

Thank you for that vote of confidence - and nice to see a youngster coming up through the ranks. We don't have enough of them. But we have all wasted our time - the OP had deleted their account, and presumably gone somewhere where they will be told what they want to hear.