Made Redundant while on furlough- unfair dismissal

poppy12345

jayzor said:

poppy12345 said:

jayzor said:

I’m afraid you aren’t going to get the answers you want to hear.

Why not? There are some extremely knowledgeable people here on the forum.

I never said there wasn’t my point is she has no leg to stand on in terms of unfair dismissal based on the original post.

Ah yes, my apologies, i misread what you wrote. I completely agree with what you've stated.

unholyangel

Loanranger21 said:

Being a parent is not one of the nine protected characteristics so you cannot claim unfair dismissal on discrimination grounds. Go the gov.uk website for the complete list, it includes disability, sex, etc but not parenthood. 
The big question as others have said is the length of your employment,  if less than two years you will struggle.

It's not as simple as that. No, it's not one of the protected characteristics. However, as women are still overwhelmingly the primary care giver, courts have previously shown they consider detriment due to childcare issues as indirect sex discrimination. Likewise if a man needs time off for caring & the employer won't give it. 

It's also more complicated because parents do actually have special rights when it comes to employment. They can take up to 18 weeks off if their child is under 18 (although I think it's limited to 4 weeks in any one year and it doesn't need to be paid. Then anyone with caring responsibilities (whether its a parent for a young child or someone without children who cares for their parents) can also request emergency leave to deal with caring responsibilities (but again, doesn't need to be paid). The employer can't treat those employees less favourably. 

But I'd say it's unlikely to have factored in, in these circumstances - unless perhaps the other 12 have also asked to work from home due to childcare.