O/T European Union

[lk311]

When the tories introduced fees for workers to take employers to court in 2013 it was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2017 , so any future changes when we are outside of the EU that companies throgh lobbying may want to pursue they may possibly want to bear that in mind .

My experience tells me your decision to sack the employer contained some grey areas because if it was a slam dunk no solicitor would touch it given the 3 month timeframe he would have to work within .

It should be difficult to sack someone , you are taking away their means of earning a living the same as its difficult to convict someone in a court of law unless you have pretty solid evidence .

You could also take a look at your management culture and procedures and identify any areas you could perhaps do better in , perhaps the drinking contest forming part of your recruitment process may warrant attention and perhaps save you problems further down the line .

He was a bad employee possibly but who hired him ?

The problem with Gross misconduct is in some areas it is obvious but there is also a lot of greyness surrounding it and this can be manipulated to suit.
I worked at a company and we did maintenance work on a cruise ship, one of the team took a picture of a whirlpool and posted it on his FB, our client found out and complained and our MD wanted to sack him for it under gross misconduct citing bringing the company into disrepute(this employee was quite difficult to manage but excellent at his job).
We didn’t sack him, mainly cos I stood my ground with the M.D. (it would have been me that had to sack him) as I felt because all he had done was showing pride by showing a before and after pic(he didn’t even include the name of the ship or company).

[SBRed48]

Why would the limitation period for claims have any bearing upon whether any individual action is taken? The same limit applies to both good and hopeless claims.

Employment Law is a bit of mystery to me these days, but I have seen several claims in the past that were clearly without any merit and designed only to try to get the employer to settle for a 'nuisance value' i.e. settling simply to avoid having to pay the costs of defending the action.

To avoid the robbing, extortionate legal fees raked in by people like thee laughing all the way to the bank.

[animallittle3]

I've taken a quick look at the sentencing guidelines for the fraudulent evasion of excise duties. To get a five year sentence, the fraud that you are talking about was probably somewhere in excess of £5 million. That’s money that could have been used for public services for all – instead the enterprise has enriched a few individuals.

It does demonstrate a point, however, which is that nobody really likes paying tax. The people who bought the cheap baccy probably didn’t think it through, but they were complicit in what was happening and were taking money away from the funding of public services that I suspect many of them would be users of.

Companies arrange their affairs so as to keep their tax bills to a minimum. The people who run businesses have a duty to the owners of the business capital to do so. They are no different from an individual who arranges his or her tax affairs to reduce their liability – common examples of that would be people who pay into pensions or use ISAs to hold their savings and take advantage of the tax breaks associated with them.

The (bleeding obvious) difference between the tobacco duty dodgers and their customers and companies is that the latter will (generally) be operating within the law, whereas the former were not. And you are right, even if companies arrange their affairs so as to reduce their UK tax liability, they are still employing people in the country and paying local taxes such as business rates.

If you can’t see a difference, I presume you don’t mind paying more tax than you are required to? If that is the position you could, say, ask your employer not to apply your personal allowance when working out your PAYE liability. They might be a bit confused if you do, but you can explain that you don’t like people or companies operating within the law to reduce their tax liability.

Possibly the ring leaders of a huge enterprise then with tentacles spreading further than a small village .

Fair enough , I didn't read the case just that they dealt in baccy and were sent down for 5 years , it was a fair while ago I think we were in the PL at the time it happened .

Are you really trying to draw a comparison between my personal allowance and a company like Amazon who paid £1.8m in tax on billions of pounds ?

Good grief !!!

[lk311]

True, fair point,

[red flagged]

I think it is a difficult balance to achieve. There are no guarantees in litigation and if people claiming unfair dismissal were routinely exposed to the risk of huge costs orders if they lost their claim, it might well discourage people from taking good claims.

The current regime does not come from the EU, as far as I am aware.

There's a (slim) relationship between this and the subject matter. The law was changed to enable the man in the street to challenge employers in court free from the worry of being liable for costs if they fail. This was to protect the ordinary bloke sacked for spurious reasons to the advantage of his employer. Like so many things in modern life this change in law to protect the genuine cases is used by the majority as a cynical way. In our case to try and force a few grand out of their ex employer even if the reasons for their dismissal were sound - but the cost of defending the decision was higher than the final amount being claimed, it would have been easier and more cost effective to roll over and have our tummies tickled. But morally wrong.
The same thing with the great asylum seeker scam, time was that that genuine people seeking deserved help come come and ask for asylum, now they bypass half a dozen countries to claim this and that here as we're the land of milk and honey in terms of benefits.

Interesting how Poland, Romania, Latvia etc don't have the immigration problems we do.

[red flagged]

When the tories introduced fees for workers to take employers to court in 2013 it was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2017 , so any future changes when we are outside of the EU that companies throgh lobbying may want to pursue they may possibly want to bear that in mind .

My experience tells me your decision to sack the employer contained some grey areas because if it was a slam dunk no solicitor would touch it given the 3 month timeframe he would have to work within .

It should be difficult to sack someone , you are taking away their means of earning a living the same as its difficult to convict someone in a court of law unless you have pretty solid evidence .

You could also take a look at your management culture and procedures and identify any areas you could perhaps do better in , perhaps the drinking contest forming part of your recruitment process may warrant attention and perhaps save you problems further down the line .

He was a bad employee possibly but who hired him ?

Unfortunately Animal temptation got the better of them and the evidence was irrefutable - which is why we stuck to our guns.
If those with a criminal disposition put as much time and energy into legitimate ways of making money as they do into criminality the world would be a much better place wouldn't it.

Their solicitor advised them against coming to court as they knew there was no chance of winning, in court they tried to find holes in the disciplinary process rather than trying to defend the actual charge.

As with bogus asylum seekers and refugees, laws there to protect the genuine cases are used by the dishonest to gain an advantage for themselves.

[Romared]

Like

[red flagged]

The problem with Gross misconduct is in some areas it is obvious but there is also a lot of greyness surrounding it and this can be manipulated to suit.
I worked at a company and we did maintenance work on a cruise ship, one of the team took a picture of a whirlpool and posted it on his FB, our client found out and complained and our MD wanted to sack him for it under gross misconduct citing bringing the company into disrepute(this employee was quite difficult to manage but excellent at his job).
We didn’t sack him, mainly cos I stood my ground with the M.D. (it would have been me that had to sack him) as I felt because all he had done was showing pride by showing a before and after pic(he didn’t even include the name of the ship or company).

Sounds like the MD just wanted to get rid of a difficult employee. It's these genuine people that the law is there to protect. Unfortunately in my experience most people we've sacked since the law changed have sought a tribunal hearing on the grounds of unfair dismissal hoping for a payout to avoid court. This is not what the law change intended I'm sure.

[animallittle3]

Interesting how Poland, Romania, Latvia etc don't have the immigration problems we do.

I wouldn't be too sure about that red flagged



https://www.dw.com/en/poland-fears-e...ans/a-42367764

[lk311]

You’re correct I am afraid. It was actually rare for us to sack people, but on the occasions we did, a couple tried going down that route and each time we were advised by our solicitors it would be cheaper to settle before court.