Out sick - no job to return to - rights?

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dubinamerica

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Hi - anyone have advice for the following situation ? Person has taken up employment for a few months and is then out sick .. Between waiting for appts and x-rays and so on ends up being out over a month. Work has advised that they will need a letter to say that person is capable of returning to work so unable to return to work sooner because need to wait to see the specialist. Once the person goes to see specialist and gets letter , contacts work and is told that the position is no longer there i.e. they don't need that extra body now as they've re-jigged things.. I'm not sure if the person has really any 'rights' on this - do they need to be in employment for a certain amount of time before they get employment rights? I remember reading something a long time back saying that they needed to be employed for 12 or 14 months before you could claim for unfair dismissal.. Does anyone have any advice on this ?
 
Unless it was a pregnancy related illness I doubt that there'd be much you could do here.
 
Nope - I'm currently expecting : ) but this query relates to my husband. I would think though if he was in the job for longer he may have had some rights but I suspect because he was only there a few months there's no come back. Any one ideas regarding when the employee rights and ability to bring unfair dismissal and whatever kick in - do you need to be in a job for a certain length of time ?
 
Contact the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment ( http://www.entemp.ie ). They have an employments rights section which should be able to set you straight as to this situation.

z
 
You need to be in a job 1 year for unfair dismissal. Since he was so new, I would imagine they were within their rights. He was probably on some sort of probation. I don't think he hasn't a leg to stand on - you could ring the Dept and ask them anyway
 
Could the illness be deemed a disability? If so may have some recourse under the Equality Acts re access to employment & disability.


Otherwise could maybe bring it to the Rights Commissioner under Industrial Relation Act (no service requirement under this act).
 
Tough situation. I'd imagine most employers would do the same in this situation where a new employee missed that much time shortly after starting. It starts the alarm bells ringing that this person may be a bit of a waster and may be out repeatedly. He probably hasn't had the chance at this stage to build the level of trust required in these situations.

Was he on probation? If so, the employer isn't obliged to give a reason when deciding not to keep the person on, and is generally advised not to give one.
 
Not sure about whether there was still a probatation period at that time - but the job insisted that he couldn't come back until he got a letter from the doctor to indicate that he was fit for work. Has the weekly 'notes' from the doctor to indicate that he was out sick and then eventually got one to indicate that he could return. Ms X - no I don't think that it would be deemed a disability. I was thinking that the employer was within their rights as he was only there for a few months but wanted to check that out - I'll take a look over that link and look for additional info but I think they are within their rights and at this stage he wants to keep on good terms with them so as to get a reference in the future. Thanks for all the advice on this.
 
In a previous job, I handled the firings...

If he was still on probation, and he's less than a year, there is pretty much nothing he can do.

Better to forget it and move on. I know this might be difficult to accept, but you're very unlikely to get a satisfactory outcome from this situation.
 
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