Asked to leave job - my rights?

[cabriochris]

My partner has been working at an estate agents for 6 weeks.

When she started they told her it would be an inital 3 month contract with a review after to see if she would stay on.

 

Other employees warned her about the company, they get rid of people every other week etc and to be careful...and all that rubbish so she has always been a bit worried about the job.

 

She has never been given a contact in writting, nor have her colleagues and they have today told her that they will not be keeping her on (aparently due to her poor health, even though she has only taken 1hour off work because of her health in the last 6 weeks).

 

Obviously she is annoyed about this and upset. She said she is worried they will ask her to leave earlier, she wants to stay the next 6 weeks because she needs the money, obviously not because she wants to now as she is completly p*ssed off with them but the money comes first.

 

Just incase they do turn round to her and say she has to leave say tomorrow, what are her rights.

 

As there is no contract, can they literally just ask her to walk out or is a verbal contact binding? If they told her to go now, would she be intitled to any money from them for leaving early?

 

Also, could any action be taken against them, this probaly wont happen as we wont go that far but as far as we know they have found someone to do the job on a cheaper rate so have made up an excuse about her health and so she aparently wont be able to give the company 110%. We think they have said this unfairly to get her out.

 

My thinking is that only being there 6 weeks, with no contract she dosnt really have any rights

[BankFodder]

in principle she has no rights under employment law because she has not been working there for a full year. I'm not sure that she even has any rights in failure to provide her with the basic contractual terms.

 

The only rights that she probably has are under contract law and she would be able to sue for a reasonable notice period.

 

Even though she is on a three-month contract -- a fixed term contract, they would be an implied notice period. You will have to work out whether this would be one week or one month. It could well be that with a new contract of the short duration that she then entitled to one week's notice. This means that if they ask you to leave immediately, she could consider suing for one weeks money. I think that she would be likely to get this and also she will recover her claims fee.

 

If the contract continues to its natural end -- then that is the best that she can hope for. I suppose the best thing for her to do would be to work hard, to impress them so that at the end of lease they will give her a good reference so that she will stand a better chance getting another job.

 

It is very nasty and very unfair but really there is nothing else to do. If you start to cause problems about it now then not only will she lose her job but also there will be little chance of references for the next employer