Taken employer to employment tribunal

Johny86

Hi everyone 

I started working for this company on 02.05.2018 on a permanent basis 36 hours contract. When I started the site was an abandoned garage and they had to renovate. I was working from 6pm-7am and doing on average between 50-63 hours a week. After the renovation, everything was up and running but my hours has reduced suddenly in Septemeber 2019 (below contracted hours). When asked my general manager he informed due to the financial down turn he had to reduce hours. I had expalined to him many times how difficult it was for me to survive being a single father with two young children but his excuse remain the same. On October 16th 2019 at 2pm I had a phone call from my daughters school and asked me immidiately to take my daughter to A&E as she had a severe cut in her forehead while playing in school. She had an emergency operation and I ended up staying in hospital with her. I was suppose to start at 6pm on that day but I could not go due to the incident. I did try call in my general manager but he was on holiday so I couldnt reach him. I called the site manager instead and let him know what had happened. He said its not a problem do what you gotta do your kids comes first. The next day I recieved an email form GM asking me why did I not turn up for my shift. I have explained to him the situation and said I have a proof of my daughter being admitted in the hospital so it was an emergency family situation. Nothing formal happened afterwards. it was one off incident in 18 months of working.So from November 2019 I was given only 12 hours a week. When asked him he said I wasnt reliable hence he cut my hours down. After explaining him more he arrogantly cut further hours and given only 2 shifts which was 24 hours in entire month. December and January was the same and in February 2020 there was nothing. I have been laid off ever since and have not heard anything from him. After several attempts to resolve the issues with him he kept saying there is no work and he will let me know once work becomes available. He has not fired me nor made redundent just kept me hanging. I know its not the case because all my hours has been allocated to my colleauges. He just needed me for that period to renovate the place and now making excuses. I contacted ACAS to help resolve the matter as a mediator but failed. He did not agree to provide my original hours and only offered me £100 redundency pay to solve the dispute. I then took him to the employment tribunal and have a hearing coming up in February 2020. I will be attaching the case management order from the ribunal along with my contract. Please have a look guys and advice. Thank you

Bungle5393

If they haven't followed any kind of Consultation process with you to reduce your hours or move to an amended contract, it definitely appears they are in breach of contract. I would expect an award greater than the amount of hours you have missed during your time with them. Have a think about what you want to happen in terms of next steps ie do you want to stay employed with them or do you want to sever contact if it wouldn't be a workable situation.

Brynsam

Johny86 said:

Hi everyone 

I started working for this company on 02.05.2018 on a permanent basis 36 hours contract. When I started the site was an abandoned garage and they had to renovate. I was working from 6pm-7am and doing on average between 50-63 hours a week. After the renovation, everything was up and running but my hours has reduced suddenly in Septemeber 2019 (below contracted hours). When asked my general manager he informed due to the financial down turn he had to reduce hours. I had expalined to him many times how difficult it was for me to survive being a single father with two young children but his excuse remain the same. On October 16th 2019 at 2pm I had a phone call from my daughters school and asked me immidiately to take my daughter to A&E as she had a severe cut in her forehead while playing in school. She had an emergency operation and I ended up staying in hospital with her. I was suppose to start at 6pm on that day but I could not go due to the incident. I did try call in my general manager but he was on holiday so I couldnt reach him. I called the site manager instead and let him know what had happened. He said its not a problem do what you gotta do your kids comes first. The next day I recieved an email form GM asking me why did I not turn up for my shift. I have explained to him the situation and said I have a proof of my daughter being admitted in the hospital so it was an emergency family situation. Nothing formal happened afterwards. it was one off incident in 18 months of working.So from November 2019 I was given only 12 hours a week. When asked him he said I wasnt reliable hence he cut my hours down. After explaining him more he arrogantly cut further hours and given only 2 shifts which was 24 hours in entire month. December and January was the same and in February 2020 there was nothing. I have been laid off ever since and have not heard anything from him. After several attempts to resolve the issues with him he kept saying there is no work and he will let me know once work becomes available. He has not fired me nor made redundent just kept me hanging. I know its not the case because all my hours has been allocated to my colleauges. He just needed me for that period to renovate the place and now making excuses. I contacted ACAS to help resolve the matter as a mediator but failed. He did not agree to provide my original hours and only offered me £100 redundency pay to solve the dispute. I then took him to the employment tribunal and have a hearing coming up in February 2020. I will be attaching the case management order from the ribunal along with my contract. Please have a look guys and advice. Thank you

Presume you mean the hearing is February 2021! 

What does the staff handbook say about reducing hours?

Masomnia

I don't think this board is a good place for advising on the merits of a case like this tbh. Have you contacted Citizens Advice and talked it through with ACAS? If you have home insurance you may have legal cover through that, so it's worth checking if they have an employment law helpline.

Comms69

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Masomnia

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Probably is. OP when did you contact ACAS to initiate the conciliation?

MalMonroe

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

No, it's already in motion, as per detailed documentation above from OP. 

MalMonroe

Masomnia said:

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Probably is. OP when did you contact ACAS to initiate the conciliation?

No it isn't. As per the OP's original post including documentation, including instructions from the actual Tribunal. It's already in motion. Acas tried doing mediation and it failed, as explained above.
Case has now moved on and is in progress.

MalMonroe

OP, you can get free legal advice. I did when I brought a case to Employment Tribunal.

I followed this link - https://www.lawworks.org.uk/  - which led me to a free service run by the university I graduated from - but they also accept cases from all members of the public, free of charge. And it was a fully qualified solicitor who also lectures there. He was excellent.

There's also information on legal aid  here :  https://www.gov.uk/legal-aid

It's a lot of work but worth it in the end and I wish you good luck because that employer sounds particularly nasty.

Comms69

MalMonroe said:

Masomnia said:

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Probably is. OP when did you contact ACAS to initiate the conciliation?

No it isn't. As per the OP's original post including documentation, including instructions from the actual Tribunal. It's already in motion. Acas tried doing mediation and it failed, as explained above.
Case has now moved on and is in progress.

The dates dont really add up, but ok. 

In anycase the far better solution would be to get another job. Which an ET would expect anyway; the pay out is minimal at best

Masomnia

MalMonroe said:

Masomnia said:

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Probably is. OP when did you contact ACAS to initiate the conciliation?

No it isn't. As per the OP's original post including documentation, including instructions from the actual Tribunal. It's already in motion. Acas tried doing mediation and it failed, as explained above.
Case has now moved on and is in progress.

To be honest I've never brought a claim out of time or defended one so I'm not sure what ACAS would do that in that situation, ie whether they would still issue a certificate stating that conciliation had failed and the employee could now lodge the ET1 or if they would flat out refuse to engage with it in the first place. I have seen tribunal decisions where claims have been struck out because they're out of time though.

With 3 months to bring a claim if they did so in Feb they'd have say till the end of May to contact ACAS, then 28 days of conciliation (plus possibly a 2 week extension) and then a month from that to lodge the ET1; so end of July roughly before they'd be out of time. It may well be that is the case and we're only hearing about it now, which is why I asked the question.