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Hi I have been made redundant today without any prior warning of any redundancy taking place. I got a job with a company in May in July I was diagnosed with a tumour and had to go for operation. While being absent for 2 weeks from work I missed out on training. When I came back to work in the beginning of August I was still recovering from the operation and I was on painkillers. I have notified my manager of it and that I would need to go back to hospital in a few weeks’ time to see if I needed to have any further treatment. However, in the first week of me being at work she began to be nasty to me and making me to do more work than anyone in the team. 2 weeks later she told me that she is not happy with my performance and that I had until end of November to improve. I got really upset with her attitude and told her I didn’t like the way she treated me but she didn’t seem to care. As a result I decided to send my grievance to HR explaining that I was being intimidated, harassed and victimised by manager. HR person invited me for a meeting after they amended their procedures. At the meeting I was told by HR that everyone gets upset when they get cautioned for their poor performance. I told HR that she is using performance as a defence to her inappropriate behaviour and that I feel like she is indirectly trying to make me to leave. HR person told me if I wanted to take disciplinary action against her it will not be good for me as they will talk about my performance which may go against me so the best thing to do is to talk to the manger and trying the solve the issue with her instead. I said I will do this and that I will give her a chance to change. But I was finding it very difficult as she was using a situation to get her ways instead of accepting that her behaviour is inappropriate. The stress and the treatment I was received was making me stressed and could not focus properly. At the same time I was experiencing sharp pain around my scar from the operation which was not healing quickly due to the pressure I was under. In November I got really ill and was home for 2 weeks when I got back I notice most of my work was delegated to someone else which wasn’t a good sign. On the 5th Jan I was called to a meeting to be told that I was made redundant due to the market condition and my performance. I felt I was being discriminated on the ground for having a tumour and on-going health problem. No readjustment were made but was constantly subjected to victimisation and harassments which I felt she was using to make me to leave and when she realised she didn’t succeed she used the redundancy as an excuse to get rid of me. Please advise if I have a solid ground for disability discrimination and what's the best way to go about it? Many Thanks
Optional Information: Province/Country relating to question: England Already Tried: nothing
Hello and thank you for your question, which I will gladly help with. Please confirm when you started working there exactly?
9th May 2011
Were you provided with any evidence that the market conditions had warranted your dismissal?
Today I was giving a letter stating that and if they cannot find me another sutable position in 90 days i will be made redundant.
were other placed at risk of redundancy?
no
did your tumour place you at a substantial disadvantage when performing your job, when compared to other employees?
yes
in what way exactly and what would the employer had been able to do to reduce these effects?
For start not overloading me with extra workload and not treating me as if I was stupid because I could not remember certain things due to the medication.
ok just going to draft my advice, won't be long
First of all, just to clarify, you won’t be able to make a claim for unfair dismissal as you do not have the necessary length of service to do that (12 months continuous service are needed).
However, a claim for disability discrimination does not need a minimum period of service so your rights in that area apply from day one.
Assuming the tumour is cancerous, then you will be automatically treated as a disabled person in law and would get protection against discrimination.
Discrimination on grounds of disability will usually occur in one of the following circumstances:
I am not certain this is direct discrimination and that may be hard to prove anyway.
Indirect discrimination could be a potential claim if you believe that any of the employer’s PCPs had placed you at such a substantial disadvantage. However, I still believe that the best claim in this case is possibly the failure to make reasonable adjustments.
If your condition is likely to be placed at a substantial disadvantage when compared to non-disabled employees, your employer will have a duty to make reasonable adjustments. What amounts to ‘reasonable adjustments’ can have a wide interpretation and often depends on the individual circumstances. Below are some examples of what could amount to a reasonable adjustment:
If you believe that you are being treated less favourably because of your disability or that your employer has failed to make reasonable adjustments that would potentially amount to disability discrimination. You should first think about raising a grievance, before considering whether you need to take this further by making a claim for disability discrimination in an employment tribunal (the time limit for claiming is within 3 months of the alleged discriminatory behaviour occurring), which in this case can also be the dismissal itself.
Please let me know if you have any further questions on this. If you do not, I would be grateful if you could please press Accept before exiting, many thanks.
I didn't get the answer yet.
Ok I will post again
Experience: Expert in UK Employment Law