Problems at work after returning from jury duty

Andy_L

Does his contract say anything about the distribution of night vs day shifts?

Unless he can show that the reason he is getting jiffed with the antisocial shifts is because of a protected characteristic (eg race, sex, religion etc) he has no come back under employment law

Undervalued

steven2022 said:

TELLIT01 said:

The only way I see the company could be considered to be acting reasonably is if there is a shift allowance in payment and the OP's friend continued to receive that during jury service.  If the friend had been sick for 3 months would they have been treated the same way on return?

My friend said his employer only paid for the first 10 days of jury service… the remaining the court paid some of his earnings. 

Legally, the employer is not obliged to pay for any of it. Jury service is considered to be a civic duty and the only entitlement is to whatever (partial) loss of earnings the government covers. Some people, particularly the self employed and high earners can end up significantly out of pocket.

So anything his employer paid is a bonus.

pinkshoes

Who has been covering those shifts during the 14 weeks jury duty?

I did a longer trial and we were told that we could object if needed to having to do a longer case. e.g. if you worked for a small business that would struggle to cover absence. I worked for a larger employer so they were ok with it. 

I'd suggest they suck it up and keep an eye on it for a few months, as I imagine the other 2 people have had to work those shifts between them whilst he was off, then hopefully it will all go back to being shared nicely.  

Diamandis

If you think about it while he's been on jury duty, he's been on 9-5 shifts. His colleagues have been picking up the late shifts for all those weeks.

theoretica

He feels he is being treated less favourably now - how have his colleagues felt for the last 3 months?  I suspect that the company may be trying to balance so all members of staff feel equally hard done by!

Spendless

What's his company policy say though? I started a job last week and had to do some equality e-learning and where I am working you are not allowed to treat an employee less favourably because of .......... I'm pretty sure that returning from Jury service would count as a reason. He should either have a handbook or an email sent to him when he started giving company policies.


If I've understood correctly, prior to him going on Jury service the hours were divvied out between the workers. This continued whilst your friend was on Jury service but they might have had more hours/additional shifts because they were 1 person down. On return your friend is being given a month of all lates the reason being he's had time away from work to serve as a Juror and no one else has been treated the same way, either whilst your friend wasn't at work or since?   

Undervalued

Spendless said:

What's his company policy say though? I started a job last week and had to do some equality e-learning and where I am working you are not allowed to treat an employee less favourably because of .......... I'm pretty sure that returning from Jury service would count as a reason. He should either have a handbook or an email sent to him when he started giving company policies.


If I've understood correctly, prior to him going on Jury service the hours were divvied out between the workers. This continued whilst your friend was on Jury service but they might have had more hours/additional shifts because they were 1 person down. On return your friend is being given a month of all lates the reason being he's had time away from work to serve as a Juror and no one else has been treated the same way, either whilst your friend wasn't at work or since?   

Whilst the company could have a policy that staff are paid whilst on jury service, as I said earlier, they are not obliged to. Some do, some don't.

What they cannot do is sack or otherwise discriminate against an employee because they have been away on jury service. If it could be shown that they had, it would automatically be unfair dismissal and the normal two year qualifying period to be eligible to make a claim would not apply.

An employer can ask an employee to try and have their jury service deferred to a more convenient time, maybe writing a letter to the jury office in support, however I don't think they can force an employee to seek to defer.

Spendless

Undervalued said:

Spendless said:

What's his company policy say though? I started a job last week and had to do some equality e-learning and where I am working you are not allowed to treat an employee less favourably because of .......... I'm pretty sure that returning from Jury service would count as a reason. He should either have a handbook or an email sent to him when he started giving company policies.


If I've understood correctly, prior to him going on Jury service the hours were divvied out between the workers. This continued whilst your friend was on Jury service but they might have had more hours/additional shifts because they were 1 person down. On return your friend is being given a month of all lates the reason being he's had time away from work to serve as a Juror and no one else has been treated the same way, either whilst your friend wasn't at work or since?   

Whilst the company could have a policy that staff are paid whilst on jury service, as I said earlier, they are not obliged to. Some do, some don't.

What they cannot do is sack or otherwise discriminate against an employee because they have been away on jury service. If it could be shown that they had, it would automatically be unfair dismissal and the normal two year qualifying period to be eligible to make a claim would not apply.

An employer can ask an employee to try and have their jury service deferred to a more convenient time, maybe writing a letter to the jury office in support, however I don't think they can force an employee to seek to defer.

I don't think I've made any comment about pay? Have you quoted the correct person? 

I agree with your comment are they discriminating him just because he's been on jury service? That was why I was asking for clarification on who has been asked to do the same shifts. If it's jsut a shift change that has come about whilst he's been a juror then that will be different, everyone will get that shift it's just his turn at the minute. If it's solely cme about because he's been off on jury service that's a different amtter.

steven2022

Andy_L said:

Does his contract say anything about the distribution of night vs day shifts?

Unless he can show that the reason he is getting jiffed with the antisocial shifts is because of a protected characteristic (eg race, sex, religion etc) he has no come back under employment law

Hi, no nothing in there contract of distribution of night/days shifts. Just 40 hrs over 5 days.

steven2022

Spendless said:

What's his company policy say though? I started a job last week and had to do some equality e-learning and where I am working you are not allowed to treat an employee less favourably because of .......... I'm pretty sure that returning from Jury service would count as a reason. He should either have a handbook or an email sent to him when he started giving company policies.


If I've understood correctly, prior to him going on Jury service the hours were divvied out between the workers. This continued whilst your friend was on Jury service but they might have had more hours/additional shifts because they were 1 person down. On return your friend is being given a month of all lates the reason being he's had time away from work to serve as a Juror and no one else has been treated the same way, either whilst your friend wasn't at work or since?   

Hi, yes that’s correct. He just had a look at the rota whilst he was on jury service and it seems the shifts were divided  between 2 employees evenly and also a third employee from a near by store was helping out now and then. He gave them plenty of notice when his jury service was going to start so they could prepare any cover.