Employment Law
Employment Law
Have you recently been dismissed from your job and believe it was unfair? Perhaps you are have an unresolved grievance in the workplace and want some advice as to the best course of action to take. Whatever your issue is, you can be reassured that our employment law specialists are here to help you understand the law by translating it into plain English and guiding you through the legal minefield that is employment law.
How we can help
We offer a wide range of employment law related services. We commonly advise our clients on:
Unfair dismissal, including ‘constructive’ unfair dismissal.
- Discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
- Compromise agreements.
- General aspects of employment law, including advice regarding employment contracts, working time directives, minimum wages, health and safety, recruitment procedures and others.
In addition, we are more than happy to help our clients by guiding them through the employment tribunal process.
To understand your issue better, let’s have a look at some of the law.
Unfair dismissal
Broadly speaking, there are three types of unfair dismissal: automatic, contested and constructive unfair dismissal.
Automatic unfair dismissal occurs where an employee is dismissed for asserting their rights through formal complaint procedures; for using statutory maternity/paternity leave; for involvement in trade unions and other industrial activity and for ‘whistle-blowing’ under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. If a dismissal is classed as automatically unfair, the employer is under a duty to show that the reason did not in fact apply.
Contested unfair dismissal can occur in a much wider-range of circumstances. Unlike automatic unfair dismissal, the employee will have to show that the dismissal was unfair and based on some illegitimate reason.
Constructive unfair dismissal occurs where an employee resigns from his job due to a workplace atmosphere or working conditions that have made it impossible for him to continue working. Possible circumstances of where this can occur include where employees are harassed and nothing is done to resolve the issue by the employer or where working conditions/work location have been changed at short notice without consulting the employee.
If after reading this you believe you have been unfairly dismissed, please get in contact with our employment law team to find out what we can do to help.
Discrimination
The Equality Act 2010 was designed to simplify and codify (bring together) existing strands of discrimination law. Whilst the Act is not in itself radical, it does introduce some changes to the substance of the law. If you are a victim of workplace discrimination and want to find out where you stand under the Equality Act 2010, please do not hesitate to get in touch for honest yet understanding advice.