Employment Tribunal - my experience

astroL

Forumites may find this impossible to believe - but it happened to me.

Back in the early 1990s I was working as an IT tutor and had a long list of adult applicants for my courses. As a former government scientist my experience and knowledge of computing at that time was 'pretty good'.  Then I was called in to see the boss who merely told me that I was being declared redundant (despite my long waiting lists of students).  My 'job' was to be taken over by the local CFE that had just bought the company and was sacking all the staff.  Their own IT courses were sparsely attended and they wanted to kill the competition.

In due course I applied to the IR Tribunal and was granted a session.  The CFE rep announced that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Court found against the complainant (me) even though they acknowledged that they had broken many employment laws.  The 'chairman' approved their request and my complaint was dismissed.

If anyone ever claims that these Tribunals are 'fair', let them know the truth.

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Wyndham

I'm not sure that something that happened over 30 years ago is necessarily helpful to share on a forum like this. You may also want to take your name off of the post.

Ayr_Rage

What is CFE ?

Maybe better in Praise, Vents and Warnings as the incident is so old.

lincroft1710

Wyndham said:

I'm not sure that something that happened over 30 years ago is necessarily helpful to share on a forum like this. You may also want to take your name off of the post.

I agree. a lot has happened in 30 years.


I presume "IR" is Industrial Relations but as some one else has asked "what is CFE?" 

mybestattempt

Could CFE be college of further education?

Marcon

astroL said:

Forumites may find this impossible to believe - but it happened to me.

Back in the early 1990s I was working as an IT tutor and had a long list of adult applicants for my courses. As a former government scientist my experience and knowledge of computing at that time was 'pretty good'.  Then I was called in to see the boss who merely told me that I was being declared redundant (despite my long waiting lists of students).  My 'job' was to be taken over by the local CFE that had just bought the company and was sacking all the staff.  Their own IT courses were sparsely attended and they wanted to kill the competition.

In due course I applied to the IR Tribunal and was granted a session.  The CFE rep announced that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Court found against the complainant (me) even though they acknowledged that they had broken many employment laws.  The 'chairman' approved their request and my complaint was dismissed.

If anyone ever claims that these Tribunals are 'fair', let them know the truth.

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History often has much to teach us, but if you wait over a quarter of a century to share it, then possibly not...seems people don't even know what CFE stands for (College of Further Education) - the world has moved on.

Maybe sit in on a few modern day tribunals? Or if you are still bitter - and your post suggests that's the case - perhaps you need professional help to come to terms with an event which took place so long ago but is still clouding your life.

robatwork

astroL said:

 The CFE rep announced that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Court found against the complainant (me) even though they acknowledged that they had broken many employment laws.  The 'chairman' approved their request and my complaint was dismissed.

This bit doesn't make sense. As they found against you, were they not 'embarrassed'? 

Or did you mean the opposite of what you said?

astroL

I read the posts.  Unless it happens to you, you will not understand. The media of the time refused to publish anything because the PCFE paid so much for advertising. I moved into teaching.

astroL

robatwork said:

astroL said:

 The CFE rep announced that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Court found against the complainant (me) even though they acknowledged that they had broken many employment laws.  The 'chairman' approved their request and my complaint was dismissed.

This bit doesn't make sense. As they found against you, were they not 'embarrassed'? 

Or did you mean the opposite of what you said?

I meant exactly what I said.  A corrupt body (Industrial Relations Tribunal) that was ready to ignore the facts.  As I wrote above.

Jude57

astroL said:

robatwork said:

astroL said:

 The CFE rep announced that it would be 'embarrassing' if the Court found against the complainant (me) even though they acknowledged that they had broken many employment laws.  The 'chairman' approved their request and my complaint was dismissed.

This bit doesn't make sense. As they found against you, were they not 'embarrassed'? 

Or did you mean the opposite of what you said?

I meant exactly what I said.  A corrupt body (Industrial Relations Tribunal) that was ready to ignore the facts.  As I wrote above.

Unfortunately, what may be perfectly clear and understandable in your head isn't coming across in your posts.

From what I can glean, 30 years ago, your role was made redundant and you were aggrieved at that so you took a case to the Industrial Relations Tribunal (Northern Ireland??) and lost. You claim that you lost because of corruption (a serious allegation) and that the employer, Tribunal and media were complicit in that corruption. That's simply not credible. It's far more likely that there was nothing remotely corrupt about it. Your service was transferred to a local College of Further Education which likely had it's own staff who could deliver the required IT course, so your role was in fact deleted from the new structure and declared redundant. That happens all the time and as awful as it is for those affected, it's part of the working landscape and happens to thousands of people every year. It's very rare for such redundancies to get more than a passing mention by local media and Industrial/Employment Tribunal cases are hardly reported at all, unless they are especially unusual. There are hundreds of such hearings held around the UK every day, but very few make it to the local, never mind national news. In your case, if you went to the local media claiming widespread corruption, there's no way they were going to risk potential lawsuits by publishing anything without ironclad proof. I very much doubt you had any proof at all that there was any corruption involved. I hate to say it but you're simply not important enough for a cabal of people in positions of authority to collude to get you out of a relatively low level job.

It seems to me that you might need to talk to someone who can help you come to terms with what was clearly a traumatic experience. Your GP will be able to refer you to a suitable professional who can help further.

astroL

Wrong.  You are wrong in your first claim - so I am not going to respond further.