Taken employer to employment tribunal

macman

What advice do you want? What resolution are you actually seeking from this process?

Johny86

Bungle5393 said:

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.

Thank you for your reply.

After recieving this treatment no I wouldnt like to be employed and I want compensation

Johny86

Brynsam said:

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?

Yes the hearing is in February 2021. Please see below the staff handbook quotes

• ‘The business operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your contracted hours will be stated on your contract of employment in the appendix. However, you be required to work additional hours in order to satisfactorily complete the work in hand.

The Company reserves the right to vary reasonably an employee's hours of work and the days on which he/she works according to business and operational requirements on a temporary or permanent basis.’

Johny86

Masomnia said:

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.

I have spoken to CAB and other employment solicitors but the amount they were asking is ridiculous. ACAS adviced the procedure and worked between us as a mediator but as previosuly told it was unsuccesful

Johny86

Comms69 said:

You're out of time for an ET claim?

Without the ACAS certificate you cant bring a claim forward. Also without an ET claim I couldnt have got a hearing date. I have attached the case management order set out by the tribunal for you to understand but yet you are confused. FYI once again the tribunal hearing is in February 2021.

steampowered

You now need to follow the "case management order" issued by the Tribunal. You need to follow it to the letter.

As set out in the case management order, you need to send the claimant by next Monday details of exactly what remedy you are asking the Employment Tribunal to award. Specifically - the £ amount you are claiming, and how you calculated that amount.

Op, it sounds like you have a lot of work to do this weekend if you want your case to continue !

What you need to understand is that it is YOUR job to work this stuff out and YOUR job to clearly explain it to the Tribunal. The Tribunal is not ACAS and it is not your solicitor - you cannot just give the Tribunal a long spiel, the Tribunal is not going to work out the details of your case for you. You opening post did not make it clear what you are actually claiming for (e.g. is this an unfair dismissal claim? A lot wages claim? What are you claiming for)? and had no paragraphs. If you try doing that with the Tribunal your case will probably get thrown out - you really need to focus on explaining yourself clearly.

See an example statement of loss here, which will give you a starting point as to what the document you need to provide next Monday should look like, though I expect your statement of loss will be shorter and simper than this example:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/problems-at-work/employment-tribunals-from-29-july-2013/employment-tribunals-valuing-a-claim/compensatory-award/calculating-the-compensatory-award/employment-tribunals-preparing-a-schedule-of-loss/employment-tribunals-sample-schedule-of-loss/

Johny86

MalMonroe said:

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.

Thank you for the link. I have tried ringing them but none of them answered

Johny86

Masomnia said:

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.

Masomnia said:

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.

I am sorry for not explaining in detail. Yes you are only hearing it now because I did not tell you the from the begining. Its in progress

Johny86

macman said:

What advice do you want? What resolution are you actually seeking from this process?

Never done anything like this before and I do not know what to do. I am seeking loss of earning compensation. I applied for jobs but wasnt able to get it due to them not giving any reference. He was so unfair he did not let me go nor willing to offer me any hours. I do have a job now but had to struggle to find it

Johny86

steampowered said:

You now need to follow the "case management order" issued by the Tribunal. You need to follow it to the letter.

As set out in the case management order, you need to send the claimant by next Monday details of exactly what remedy you are asking the Employment Tribunal to award. Specifically - the £ amount you are claiming, and how you calculated that amount.

Op, it sounds like you have a lot of work to do this weekend if you want your case to continue !

What you need to understand is that it is YOUR job to work this stuff out and YOUR job to clearly explain it to the Tribunal. The Tribunal is not ACAS and it is not your solicitor - you cannot just give the Tribunal a long spiel, the Tribunal is not going to work out the details of your case for you. You opening post did not make it clear what you are actually claiming for (e.g. is this an unfair dismissal claim? A lot wages claim? What are you claiming for)? and had no paragraphs. If you try doing that with the Tribunal your case will probably get thrown out - you really need to focus on explaining yourself clearly.

See an example statement of loss here, which will give you a starting point as to what the document you need to provide next Monday should look like, though I expect your statement of loss will be shorter and simper than this example:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/problems-at-work/employment-tribunals-from-29-july-2013/employment-tribunals-valuing-a-claim/compensatory-award/calculating-the-compensatory-award/employment-tribunals-preparing-a-schedule-of-loss/employment-tribunals-sample-schedule-of-loss/

Thank you so very much for your input. Although I did not clarify what remedy I was asking for but somehow you read my mind. Yes loss of earnings indeed. Please provide me further links if you have any. It was very helpful. Am I allowed to send the tribunal and the employer the remedy by email or it has to be by post? Sorry my fault for leaving it last minute