Right to work

KatrinaWaves

With the OPs level of written English in the first post I’m not surprised they have doubts over whether he was born in UK!

theoretica

The legislation says that employers are not required to ask for this - not that you are not required to do as your employer instructs. If you have personal reasons not to provide this then perhaps now is the time to sort out appropriate documents while you are employed. If you just object for the sake of objecting, well that's your choice.

Undervalued

mhuk81 wrote: »

Friend showed me gov site. Since I started before feb 08 it's not needed so I'm not sharing it. It might get some flack but I'm not fussed since it's written down. Thank you all for the replies.

Well if you insist on taking that attitude then I would make very sure you fully understand the legal position!

As I understand it the law says they are not obliged to ask. This is not remotely the same as "can't ask".

Your employers have asked, so if you refuse and they were to take disciplinary action for failing to comply with a reasonable management instruction, what exactly is going to be your defence?

Take this to the ultimate and they dismiss you. You take them to a tribunal where you might (but most likely not) get a technical win. Compensation? Most unlikely because the tribunal would almost certainly make what is known as a "Polkey reduction" as you would have been the author of your own misfortune.

But still, I am sure you think you know best!

MacMickster

theoretica wrote: »

The legislation says that employers are not required to ask for this - not that you are not required to do as your employer instructs. If you have personal reasons not to provide this then perhaps now is the time to sort out appropriate documents while you are employed. If you just object for the sake of objecting, well that's your choice.

Exactly. The OP's employer doesn't have to check his/her right to work in the UK, but there is nothing in legislation saying that they mustn't check.

If an employee of mine had ever been obstructive about something like this then I would have

a) Questioned why, and

b) if necessary, eventually gone down the disciplinary route for failing to follow a reasonable instruction.

Edit: It appears that I was typing this while Undervalued was posting exactly the same thing.

Savvy_Sue

theoretica wrote: »

The legislation says that employers are not required to ask for this - not that you are not required to do as your employer instructs.

Yup, and it is a wise employer who insists on seeing RTW documents for ALL employees, regardless of how long they have worked there, and regardless of where they were born. If only SOME longer-term employees were asked to comply with this, it could appear to be discriminatory.

robatwork

And people are so critical of employers here.
Probably the OP does have something to hide

TBagpuss

OP, you are mistaking what the government requires your employer to do and what your employer requires you to do.
The government doesn't require your employer to check your right to work.

BUT
Your employer is requiring you to provide ID.

There are lots of things your employer requires you to do which aren't mandated by the government - anything from their internal policies about dress code, processes for requesting time off, their social media policy, etc.

If you don't provide the documents are requested you are disobeying a lawful instruction given by your employer. They can perfectly legitimately treat that as a disciplinary offence, so you could wind up losing your job by refusing.

What is likely to be much more sensible is to address *why* you don't want to provide it.

For instance, if you are worried about identity theft, ask them to confirm that the copies will be stored securely, and destroyed within a reasonable time once you are no longer an employee.

yksi

So much angst here. Why not simply ask why they are requesting it? If they tell you it's a legal requirement, that's where you politely reference the website showing that you don't need to provide it. Then the whole issue disappears.

If they give some other reason (like, because it's policy) you then decide whether you want to consult your contract and/or make them annoyed.

Undervalued

yksi wrote: »

So much angst here. Why not simply ask why they are requesting it? If they tell you it's a legal requirement, that's where you politely reference the website showing that you don't need to provide it. Then the whole issue disappears.

If they give some other reason (like, because it's policy) you then decide whether you want to consult your contract and/or make them annoyed.

But the website doesn't say that!!

It may be the case that the employer is not obliged to ask but that is not the same thing as not allowed to ask.

They are entitled to ask, whether they are obliged to or not!

They have asked and it is very difficult to make a case that it is not a reasonable management request.

yksi

Undervalued wrote: »

But the website doesn't say that!!

It may be the case that the employer is not obliged to ask but that is not the same thing as not allowed to ask.

They are entitled to ask, whether they are obliged to or not!

They have asked and it is very difficult to make a case that it is not a reasonable management request.

It's not really the point - you ask, because you want to know why they want it, and it isn't unreasonable to ask why, so you listen to what they have to say. If they just say they want it because they can, well, stalemate. But they MIGHT just be asking thinking they need it legally when they don't and they might be ok with it once they realise it isn't actually needed.

Even HR people are occasionally human and make mistakes.