Disciplinary help please, can i appeal and is it worth it?

[H3LLM0TT]

Hi there, this Is a copy of an email I have sent to the GMB but I would like to hear other opinions if anyone can help id be grateful.

I am a GMB member and my membership number is

I have recently been involved in a disciplinary hearing at work and have been given a final written warning, the issues my workplace had with me were:

*Concerns with my attitude towards Marketing

*Concerns with my attitude towards jobs and customer expectations, considering we are a 24hr service provider

*Concerns with my general attitude towards work

Just to explain that I have already received a written warning for the second two topics above, however I was not a member of the GMB then, it is still current on my file for a few more months.

As before stated I am a member of the GMB and looking back I should have contacted you before for some advice before I went to the disciplinary, basically I was given the letter in the office on Wednesday, I was not happy so I asked to have a word with the boss, she said she wasn't allowed to talk about it and I would have to wait until the disciplinary hearing. However as I wanted to know if I still had a job or not, she contacted ACAS and they told her she could give me my disciplinary there and then if I wanted it.

*The issue of marketing, basically when there is no work in for us we are expected to go to building sites, workplaces etc to try and get work for the business, a few weeks ago we had a team meeting and in the meeting she discussed this, she also asked if anyone needed any help or training for this and the majority of staff said yes, they then sent me marketing for half a day and I didn't get any leads, however I still have not had any training which was asked for. It is also at her own admission not contractual to do marketing and it says nothing in my contract about it either.

* Concerns about my general attitude towards work: On this topic my boss brought up an ongoing issue that I have been having with a member of office staff, several of us have had issues with this particular member, a few weeks ago my boss had an informal chat with me on this matter and said for me to try harder and to try and improve my attitude to her, however she has decided to bring this up in my disciplinary even though since this conversation I have tried a lot harder and have had no further issues with her. She also mentioned that at work I hadn't “looked happy” for a while now, she said that she didn't want customers to see me like this, she then went on to say that if I had any problems at home (which I haven't) then I should leave them there. When I explained that I had no problems at home and customers didn't see me like this she said why do we see it here and I said because you keep disciplining me and ive been worried about if my job is safe or not.

*Concerns with my attitude towards jobs and customer expectations, considering we are a 24hr service provider....

**my contract states** : You are employed to work full time. Your normal working hours will be 8:30am to 5:00pm. Your attendance will be 8:30am to 5:00pm 5 days per week, including an unpaid break of half an hour per day, making your basic working hours 40hrs per week. However due to the nature of your employment it will be necessary to work such additional hours as required to fulfil your duties. This will include evening duties and working weekends and statutory holidays on a locally agreed rota. (im presuming this is related to being on call as it says Rota?)

I am aware my workplace is a 24hr service provider and on one or two days a week we are on a call rota even though we have worked a full day shift, technically I start at 8:30am and finish at 5:00pm when on call if the jobs kept coming in overnight I could end up doing a 24hr shift, when we finish after 12pm mon-thursday we only get 10hrs off work is the law not 11hrs?.

My boss brought up there was a few times where I had kicked up a fuss about receiving jobs late in the day e.g at 4:30pm they could send me to a job that is in excess of 30mins away meaning its outside my working hours however we don't get paid overtime for this and the job could take hours to complete there has been times when I have been out till more like 8pm. It does state in my contract that I will not be paid overtime for this work.

One occasion was late in the day they sent me to a job which was in excess of 1hr away, I did this job as it was early afternoon and didn't make a fuss about it, although they have had reports from the office I did.

Another occasion was they sent me to do a quote late on in the day which we also don't get paid for, as I was the only engineer available in the area they then sent me to another job after this which would take me again over my working hours, again in the past I probably would have kicked up a fuss about it but I merely asked why couldn't the on call person do it, they told me not to worry to just start the job and the on call person would come and take over however I knew that the on call person was a few hours away from getting to me. I left it at that and I did complete the job.

My boss asked In the future if I have any plans I have to let them know at the beginning of the week and the days I don't have plans I will be expected to work later if required, however peoples plans change so is this a reasonable request? Also is overtime legally compulsory because on the weekends im not on call I like to not work overtime as I have a 2yr old that I only see on weekends, but also a part of the issue is my lack of overtime.

On this topic my boss just said that I had been being awkward to which I disagreed I asked for some examples to which she didn't have any, she ended the hearing and said she would gather some evidence (stated above) and get back to me with a decision. The day after I was invited back to the second part of my hearing, my boss ALREADY had a sealed envelope in her hand after she told me her evidence and I had my say she told me she was issuing me a final written warning for 12 months and handed me the envelope.

Is this allowed? surely she should have waited to hear my reply to the allegations first before then making a decision.

The real question is, do I have grounds for an appeal and would I be backed by a GMB representative or am I on my own as I have already had the disciplinary.

If I do have grounds for appeal but I would not be backed by a rep any help you could give me towards this would be received gratefully.

Regards

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[Eloise01]

Re: Disciplinary help please, can i appeal and is it worth it?

Can I just be clear about something - you insisted upon and agreed to an "on-the-spot" disciplinary without the benefit of union advice or representation and you volunteered for this? Why are you wasting money on paying for a union? The purpose of a union is to advise you on such matters and to accompany and represent you.

In respect of the actual question posed - is it worth appealing... in my experience appeals are seldom successful so you must balance the chances of it being successful against the fact that you are on a final warning now and one more step out of line will result in your dismissal, so stickig your head up over the parapet and arguing may not be a great idea.

I could make several other comments, but before I do - I get the impression that you may not have worked in this employment for very long. How long have you been working there?

[H3LLM0TT]

Re: Disciplinary help please, can i appeal and is it worth it?

I could make several other comments, but before I do - I get the impression that you may not have worked in this employment for very long. How long have you been working there?

I have actually worked here for just over 3 years, however have only been in the union a few months and I am aware of what they do but as I'd already been on a warning and she had brought up the same issues again I was a bit unpleased to say the least and wanted to know if I still had a job or not, I am aware this was a mistake and as such the reason I am asking for help, in the previous disciplinary letter it explained that if she still had concerns through the duration of the written warning that I may be asked to come in and speak to her about it, she hasn't said a word until again I got handed a letter for another disciplinary, and then adding the marketing to it which is not contractual so how can she discipline me for it, in my eyes I haven't really done alot wrong so therefore surely an informal chat would have been sufficient if she still had some concerns rather than dragging me back in and giving me a final written warning! ?

[Eloise01]

Re: Disciplinary help please, can i appeal and is it worth it?

Ok - well going in without the union was extremely foolish, but whether the union will tell you this or not, you are putting your job at risk. You have had a warning - after you have a warning there are no "informal chats" about anything - it is formal down the line, and especially those things you already got a warning for. I am somewhat surprised that you expected a bit of a chat after already having a warning.

But there are some things you need to understand. In saying this I am not taking the employers side - just telling you like it is. Because if someone doesn't then the dismissal will be around the corner, and I wouldn't like to see that happen.

In relation to your contractual terms, you are contractually obliged to attend callouts and work additonal hours as required. That is the end of that matter. What you like working, what you would prefer to work, or whether it is convenient for you to work is not at all relevant. Your contractual terms are clear - you are required to work a call out rota bit you are also required to work such additional hours as are required. Both are stated and both apply. So much as I appreciate your point of view about the hours etc., this is the job you took, it is there in your contract and if you gripe or whinge about it then your employer is not going to be happy. The fact that they are not happy has been made clear to you - take note of the (literal) warning!

In relation to working hours, if this working pattern occasionally results in your working more than the hours laid down under the Working Time Regulations, then there are provisions for this - in other words yes, it is allowed but there needs to be compensatory rest at some other time, and this is something that you would need to bring to your employers attention and resolve.

There is nothing unreasonable in asking you to provide the employer with information at the beginning of the week about hours that you cannot work to enable them to plan who is available to provide cover for jobs out of hours.

Nobody is entitled to overtime pay - whether they work overtime or not. Unpaid overtime is not uncommon. Overtime is compulsory if your contract says it is - and it does, so it is. The law only specifies that the total working hours must not be such that this reduces the wage below the national minimum wage on an hourly basis.

And whilst I agree that if you have no skills in marketing it is reasonable to ask for training (a) the tasks you do are not contractual, and employers can add to them, and (b) be very careful what you wish for because if this work is being provided because there is no other work to do, then one alternative is redundancies, and with a final wanring you will be very high on the list of "first people out the door".

To be honest, it doesn't sound like the ideal job or the ideal employer for you (nor probably for anyone else!), but needs must - if you need the job then I would suggest that sweetness and light should be your watchword if you cannot achieve invisibility, and invisibility would be preferable. If there are better jobs out there, then use your time usefully to get one of them. If there aren't, then this is the one you have and you need to hang on to it. Most of the things you are complaining about, I would complain about too - but then I wouldn't have taken the job and I wouldn't have agreed to those contractual terms, and you did! The fact is that they are your contractual terms (mostly) and most of your complaints are about the terms that you agreed to. I am not saying that to be harsh - it is just a fact, and its a fact that you are going to have to live with until you can get a better job.

To be clear - what I am not getting from anything you have said is any serious or clear unfairness in law - what you think of as unfair may well be just that, but it isn't the measure the law uses. Move to the next disciplinary stage on similar grounds and it is very unlikely that you will have a legal case of unfairness or that even a union could save your bacon. To be honest it sounds like you are very unhappy in your job - perhaps not surprisingly - and trying to draw a line under this and move on might be your best hope.

And no, given the circumstances I wouldn't appeal because I would be doing my best to become invisible until I could hand in my notice and leave under my own steam.