Unfair dismissal

emilycharlotte

Hi All
Sorry for the essay but I need to get this all down!
I work for a medium size law firm. 
I was due to qualify as a Legal Executive in August this year. My firm have paid for some of my exams and my contract states they would support me with 20 hours of work based learning per week that I needed to qualify. 
Back at the beginning of March I had an appraisal where I was told the Directors are very happy with my performance and come August when I qualify it was agreed that I would transfer to a different office (closer to my home) and they will be offering me a Legal Exec job. 
Coronavirus hit. End of March/April an email came round asking employees to volunteer themselves for furlough. I spoke to my Head of Department and explained that I did not want to be furloughed as it would affect my qualification. He responded that "it is all well and good qualifying but you need to have a job to qualify into". 
A few of my colleagues were furloughed. My caseload quadrupled and I was sat working until 10pm most nights trying to keep on top of work. 
Then, on the Thursday of Easter weekend received a letter asking me to sign for a 10% paycut. In response to this letter, I asked a few questions... when will the paycut be reviewed? What are the alternatives? Can I work 10% less (1 afternoon per week) so I can find another job to cover the loss of money? How will this affect my move to the other office? I received no response to these questions for 3 weeks. Around 2 weeks in I sent my boss an email asking for an update to which I received an email saying "no progress but your response to the paycut is causing problems with the directors". I asked what problems and asked my boss to call me so I could discuss. He never did. A week later I was called to say I was being put on furlough. 
The day I received the furlough phone call, I also received a phone call from my friend/colleague in a different department who had previously been furloughed. She did not know about the phone call I had received and was ringing to tell me that they were bringing her back from furlough and pulled her across into my team. What my firm actually did was put me on furlough and replaced me with her. She was doing my job. 
I was furloughed from 1 May. I heard nothing from my firm up until 4 June when I had a call from HR asking if I was enjoying furlough and if I was willing to sign for the 10% paycut yet. I asked what the alternate was. I re-iterated that I still needed an answer to the questions I had asked last time. I was told HR would come back to me with the answers. I made it very clear I would sign the letter but I wanted answers to my questions before I did. On 5 June I was called to say "the directors have made the decision to make you redundant from 30 June". I was not given a reason. I asked if that meant my job was unavailable and HR said yes. 
I received a redundancy letter confirming redundancy and  that I would receive furlough salary and my accrued holidays (I have been there 1 year 11 months so not entitled to redundancy pay). 
On 10 June my firm then started a consultation for redundancy (after I've already been made redundant).
On 15 June my boss called my colleague and asked her to have a word with her friend to see if she would like a job in the department. My redundancy has not been announced in the firm so my department are not aware I have been made redundant. At a recent team meeting I am told my boss mentioned me as having had 'a great month for billing' meaning I made them lots of money that month!
Anyway, yesterday I had to collect my portfolio from my boss' house. This is a portfolio of work I had put together in the time I was there which I am required to do by my regulator to pass my qualification. My boss invited me into his garden and asked me why I refused to sign for the paycut. I explained to him I never refused and explained how it actually went down. He seemed genuinely surprised and said him and the other directors were told that I categorically refused to sign.  We had a frank conversation where he said a number of things including 1. the HR person was 'out of their depth' 2. the colleague brought in to replace me 'wasn't a patch' on me 3. my redundancy was 'absolutely nothing to do with my performance'. 
He asked me if I would like him to speak to the Directors about their decision and I said yes please. I then followed this up with an email explaining that there had been a 'miscommunication' and asking him to speak to the Directors about my job. 
I am pretty sure that I will not be getting my job back but I wanted to get this down to check if I have any rights and if I should be speaking to an employment solicitor.
If I do not get my job back and I am entitled to make a claim then can that claim include money I will lose due to my now not being able to qualify on time? 
If you have got this far then thanks! and thanks in advance of any help

Pajaro

I am sorry to say that you have zero rights as you have been there for less than 2 years.

There does not seem any way you can make a case that they discriminated against you based on "protected characteristics" and so unless they change their mind you have no recourse.

The one thing in your favour is that your replacement may be so bad, they may change their mind but do not bank on that. Your employer sounds like a toxic working environment, if someone in HR can lie to get you out of the company and this does not bode well for the competence of senior management.

You seem like someone who is good at what they do and since they have made you redundant then you will get a good reference when trying to get alternative employment.

Tell you a story, I got sacked for "poor performance" at the end of last year and then 2 weeks later they begged me to go back and told them where to go on the phone and ignored the follow up email.

I am sorry to say that there are a lot of bad employers all over and you may lose out despite doing everything right.  You may just have to chalk this up to life experience.

emilycharlotte

Thank you for your reply. 
It just doesn't seem right that they can effectively do what they want within the 2 year period and that I have no rights. 
I was being bullied into signing for a paycut and when I hesitated and asked for more information (which I would have thought I have legal rights to do) they dug their heels in and got rid of me. 
I know you are right and the place is toxic but I literally need 3 months to qualify and then I can go elsewhere which is the most frustrating part of this after years and years of studying.
The current job market is dire and I would usually have no problem picking up a new job but at the minute even the recruiters are furloughed because there are no jobs! 
Sorry to hear about your job- I hope you managed to find something better! 

TELLIT01

Your Head of Department made a very valid point about having a job to come back to when you complained about furlough delaying your qualifying.  You couldn't cope with the increased workload so they made the decision to furlough you, as is their right.  Working in the legal sector I'm surprised you didn't realise that you had few employment rights, and were so determined to try to get thing 'your way'.

jonnygee2

Yes sorry. Their apparent use of the furlough scheme as some sort of punishment is clearly unethical and it sounds like the HR person is a bit crap (not unusual). Although we have open side of the story.

Still, no such thing as unfair dismissal before two years in these kind of circumstances. It’s basically you vs the HR person now, no telling who the business will side with.

emilycharlotte

There is 1 HR person. The pay cut was a firm wide pay cut and not just me. There were many people who asked questions in the same way I did. Fortunately for me, I live with another colleague who was present when I had the conversations with HR and was also at the meeting with my boss yesterday. My boss made it clear he was annoyed with HR but he is one of a bunch of directors so I suppose I will need to wait and see what the outcome is once he has spoken to the others. I don't have much hope as they have already replaced me. 

Takeaway_Addict

You seem to have this belief that everything was as normal. A companywide pay cut tells differently.
You've made yourself a pain which considering all the other stresses around currently they didn't need to deal with.
It is however a good sign the boss spoke to you in his garden, if they weren't going to at least think about it they wouldn't have bothered

Comms69

emilycharlotte said:

There is 1 HR person. The pay cut was a firm wide pay cut and not just me. There were many people who asked questions in the same way I did. Fortunately for me, I live with another colleague who was present when I had the conversations with HR and was also at the meeting with my boss yesterday. My boss made it clear he was annoyed with HR but he is one of a bunch of directors so I suppose I will need to wait and see what the outcome is once he has spoken to the others. I don't have much hope as they have already replaced me. 

But you were the one without 2 years service. Keep your head down in the future