Unfair dismissal
Lets suppose I am a really hardnosed airline owner/manager.
My crew are planning a strike that could cost me several million pounds per day??
As I’m a very, very hardnosed businessman I think I will take on the union and the law that supports them. Why? I don’t think I care about unfair dismissal claims when my business is being held to ransom by a divided and poorly organised minority who have an even poorer understanding of employment law.
What does the law say about unfair dismissal claims??
Statutory protection against unfair dismissal is given to employees with at least one year’s continuous employment. An Employment Tribunal has power to award compensation for unfair dismissal up to £56,800. Awards made by Employment Tribunals for the calculation of compensation are made up of the Basic award and the Compensatory Award.
Basic Award
For service below the age of 22 this is half a week’s pay for each year of service. For service between the ages of 22 and 40 inclusive one weeks pay for each year of service and for ages 41 to 65 one and a half week’s pay for each year of service. A week's pay is capped at £310 and the basic award is subject to a maximum of £9,300.
Compensatory Award
The maximum compensation is £60,600 except for discrimination cases where there is no maximum.
The Compensatory Award is intended to included compensation for:-
loss of earnings
employer’s pension contributions
loss of other benefits e.g. company car or any other perks.
An employee has a duty to mitigate his loss i.e. look for other work and failure to do so can result in a reduction of compensation. A Tribunal can also reduce the award to have regard to the employees contribution to his or her dismissal.
So, as my crew have backed me into a corner, If I just sack a group of the ringleaders or people who seem to be going sick regularly, have had a poor appraisal etc etc and I just accept that it will cost me nearly £1million or so, I will frighten the hell out of most of the strikers and make most of them come back to work pretty quickly, leaving an even smaller number of hardliners to be weeded out at my leisure, I will break the strike before it even started or at worst early into it and I have not incurred the cost of a fully established strike. Hmmm that will do for a start.
This is the real world!!!
If you don’t think this can’t happen….do your research, it can and it has.