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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
I agree with James Fairchild's posts.
There is a site called http://www.employees.org.uk (front page only) that lists the numbers like ACAS for getting a DIY case together. Also, if there's any obscure package of telephone counselling and a legal helpline bundled with your employment conditions, it would be worth finding-out about while you still have a contract. DAS are good.
From personal experience, I know that I've stuck myself in bad careers for far too long, and that a break doing something that pays like building work would have helped me reconsider.
A lesson for employers reading this.
Amicus isn't going to help you root-out middle management bullies unless forced to be transparent, have a contract with their members, use members' subscriptions to pay allocated staff etc. Otherwise they'll let problems build-up for years until they can get a referral free for sending a member to a no-win no-fee lawyer, or maybe get some free publicity from some sort of industrial action.
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Kelly
What advice would you give to an employer recognising a bad union, that doesn't tackle workplace bullying?
John
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Like Carole Simmons, I have given up any idea of ever being an employee again after seeing people do things - harassment - that would be illegal in the street but which judges simply chuck-out when applied to work (if I've understood the law right)....
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/1492.html
....just as they don't enforce psychiatric injury claims in practice.
I think part of the problem is that many of us just get the sack if we work for, say, Alan Sugar - making John Maltby's comment of 13 May is more or less true. But in some companies and most state-funded organisations, sacking is slower and nastier and part of a constant Machiavellian rat race of false allegations, rudeness, trying to make someone's job impossible in order to blame them etc etc.
The difficulty is when management are asked to keep-up a set of appearances, for example to get a grant, and spend all their time Machiavellying instead of managing. Public sector managers may do little else but play power games while their subordinates have to do a real job for the taxpayer and their pupils / clients / patients as well as putting-up with the management.
The My Grievance site looks like one part of the solution.
I don't think that putting-up with a bad union is part of the solution.
The accounts of the T&G at the Certification Office show something under £10 per member per year spent on a 2,000th part of a member of staff for each member out of a £10-£15 subscription each month. The rest goes into a black hole. The union claims to have a legal budget of £5-£6 per member per year for personal injury and 66p per member per year for employment law, but even that appalling under-funding looks like a lie. The ratio suggests they're using no-win no-fee lawyers and may even be paid by the lawyers to make referrals.
So I think Craig Stewart's good reports must logically be rare exceptions. There is no way Unite-T&G can help 750,000 working members with 400 staff and a no-win no-fee lawyer referral scam.
I hope that employers and HR workers can sometimes try to tweak a recognition agreement to insist that the recognised part of the union publishes staff/member ratios, convincing accounts, evidence that they can consult all members often by post or email, and that nearly all subscriptions paid by people covered by the recognition agreement are accounted for online. It may seem odd to ask so much, but it looks from Vi Gray's link as though an employer has done a deal with a union to let down members; why not do a deal forcing a trade union to do its job?
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Two unions - Unite-T&G and Unison - have let slip in publicity that all their legal work is usually no-win no-fee. I imagine that Amicus is no different. So if you think another lawyer might give better advice, try Solicitors-Online.com for a database of employment or discrimination lawyers by postcode and find out if any of the nearby ones do no-win no-fee.
There are two web sites for narrowing-down the facts of legal claims before seeing a solicitor, called Iambeingfired.com and Andrea Adams Trust; both can be useful to use before seeing a no-win no-fee solicitor. If the Disibility Discrimination Advice Line isn't much help, you could call ACAS 08457 47 47 47 Monday to Friday, 8-1800. The suggestion above for Armchair Advice looks useful as well.
The main thing is to look for legal advice separately to any help you can get from the union or complaint you want to make to them. Good luck.
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Anne
thanks for your comment!
From what I can make out, successful appeals about time limits are rare, but I did get my MP to forward a letter of complaint. I do agree that most employers are law abiding. Khushreen: yes - it's the same in the public sector too
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Anne
I'm in business now but gave-up being an employee after trying to bring a Union-backed case. I would be scared to employ or be employed now after seeing the chaos of the tribunal system in which, as David says, it is assumed that there is no point of principal and that parties must puff-up their positions to each other in a pre-hearing review and then settle.
About recognising unions: I learned that recognition agreements should have the word "democratic" in them, with clauses about members voting directly in elections, saying that they have seen the branch and central accounts, and being able to see rule books and branch documents online as well as voting online. Without these safeguards, unions like my Unite-T&G branch can turn into enthusiasts fundraising organisations without members knowing it, can make no suggestions for reasonable adjustments to disability, don't help with wistleblowing when bad management lines are in place, suggest going off sick for the longest period, and then provide an incompetent no-win no-fee lawyer after most of the time limits have run out.
Everybody lost: the employer, the outgoing employee, and the remaining employees because nobody ever got to the points of principal about bullying management and failures of reasonable adjustment.
David: the same that I said about unions should apply to insurance companies. I've no experience from the employer's side but your new legal insurers should make sure you've got some sort of human resources helpline and free model documents to use.
Maybe, like unions, human resources advice tends to be unimaginative and impractical about reasonable adjustments to arthritis: my employer's in-house human resources worker was hopeless.
So: a tale of woe, which practical, un-bureaucratic, unions and human resources staff could have sorted-out before it happened.
John
PS my disablility was not arthritis but short-term memory loss after HIV and pneumonia. The adjustments asked for were a desk, supervision in a new part of my job writing a teaching syllabus, and peace-and-quiet. The tribunal never even got to the ask about those and whether they had been offered or not.
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John Robertson
Member - 7 posts
Unison help could be backed-up with legal insurance.
Some brokers can get you legal insurance on its own, rather than as an add-on.
Wish I could help more with your need for clarity. It must be agonising to work-out whether your line manager is deliberately trying to get you to do something that looks like a mistake, or whether the organisation just likes having lots of hierachy and procedures but doesn't like doing anything or being practical. The two seem to overlap in some organisations.
Is your line manager deliberately hiding manuals and info, or does the motive seem to be saving expense?
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