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An employee has a permanent contract to do in excess of 48 hours per week and has opted out of the Working Time Regulations (WTR). The employer now wishes to cut the employee's hours. There is no flexibility clause within the contract allowing for the change. The employee won't agree to the change, the union will not agree to the change on the employee's behalf. The employer now threatens "fire and re-hire" using the reason some other substantial reason (SOSR).
There are certain situations where SOSR dismissal cannot be used. This includes cases where dismissal for any reason would be deemed as automatically unfair. Automatically unfair dismissal describes those circumstances where the dismissal of an employee violates the worker’s statutory employment rights. In such cases, the dismissal is classed as automatically unfair, meaning the employee would have a case in an employment tribunal.
Given that the employee has opted out of the WTR, if the employer uses "fire and re-hire" presumably the employer has breached the statutory employment right of the employee to opt out of the WTR and the employee has a case for unfair dismissal in the employment tribunal?
There are certain situations where SOSR dismissal cannot be used. This includes cases where dismissal for any reason would be deemed as automatically unfair. Automatically unfair dismissal describes those circumstances where the dismissal of an employee violates the worker’s statutory employment rights. In such cases, the dismissal is classed as automatically unfair, meaning the employee would have a case in an employment tribunal.
Given that the employee has opted out of the WTR, if the employer uses "fire and re-hire" presumably the employer has breached the statutory employment right of the employee to opt out of the WTR and the employee has a case for unfair dismissal in the employment tribunal?
