Unfair Dismissal

Employees with 2 years’ service and over have protection from Unfair Dismissal.  This means that when seeking to dismiss an employee, the employer must be able to show one of the five ‘potentially fair reasons’ for dismissal and then follow a fair and reasonable process.

The 5 potentially fair reasons are:

1. Performance
2. Misconduct
3. Redundancy
4. Illegality
5. ‘Some other substantial reason’

Automatically Unfair Reasons

Some things are automatically unfair if they’re the main reason for dismissing an employee. You can bring a claim for Automatic Unfair Dismissal regardless of how long you have been working for your employer.

These Include:

• Making a flexible working request
• Being pregnant/ on maternity leave
• Wanting take family to leave e.g. parental, paternity or adoption leave.
• Being a trade union member
• Taking part in legal, official industrial action for 12 weeks or less e.g. going on strike.
• Asking for a legal right e.g. to be paid the National Minimum Wage
• Doing Jury Service
• Being involved in whistleblowing
• Being forced to retire
• Taking action, or proposing to take action, over a health and safety issue.

For further information on unfair dismissal, please contact a member of our specialist Employment Team on 0345 646 0406 or fill in our online enquiry form and a member of our Team will be very happy to assist.