The first heading I would like to discuss with you is unfair dismissal. In order to have a claim for unfair dismissal, you must have one year’s service. One year’s service means that you have completed a year’s service from your effective date of termination.

What does this mean?

• The effective date of termination means the date that your employment ended.
• If you are dismissed for gross misconduct, your date of termination is the date that you actually receive notification of your dismissal whether verbally or in writing.
• If however you are dismissed with notice, then it is the date on which the notice expires. If you are dismissed with notice and they pay you in lieu of notice, in other words, they pay you for your full period of notice and do not require you to work it or continue to be employed, then your effective date of termination is the date that you are told that you are no longer required to work and that you are being paid in lieu of notice.

Remember at the beginning I said I would try not to make this too complicated, so I will summarise where we are up to.

In order to have one year’s service, you must complete a full year of employment at 365 days. Those days can include notice provided you are not paid in lieu of notice or that you are not dismissed for gross misconduct. If you fail to get a year’s service, then you do not have a claim for unfair dismissal although you may have other claims.

You must be employed to have a claim for Unfair Dismissal

If you are not employed, then you do not have a claim for unfair dismissal. This sounds simple and straightforward. Most people know when they are employed or when they are not employed but not always. For example, those in the building industry will know that there is a Self-employment Certificate Labour under an SC60 process.

There are also circumstances where you enter into a verbal contract with someone where it is not clear whether you are employed or not. In order to determine whether you are an employee or not, we will ask you to complete a questionnaire based on the case which is a leading case of establishing employment called Ready Mix Concrete. If you have any doubts about whether you are employed or not, please go to “Are you an Employee?”

Say you are an employee and you have more than a year’s service. In this case, the employer can only dismiss you on one of five grounds which we will go through in detail.

The grounds are:

1. Redundancy
2. Legal prohibition
3. Some other substantial reason
4. Capability
5. Conduct