# Scottish/British law: Blanket punishment in the work place **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762 "2004-10-23T13:26:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762/21 "2004-10-24T08:04:39Z")
Well Gorilla man, [this site](http://www.bcentral.co.uk/issues/administration/peoplemanagement/dismissingemployees.mspx#XSLTsection125121120120) seems to disagree. But frankly that site is a bit confusing as to which factorsoverride which others. On the one hand it says that UD is subject to 1 years service, on the other it is clear that some types of dismissal (pregnancy, race etc) are regardless of service period. I’m sure we’ve given enough of an answer for the OP, and if someone wants to look up the details I’d be interested to hear, but that’s as far as I’m going to go, not being qualified to comment on the UK jurisdiction as I’m not. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762/22 "2004-10-24T08:10:34Z")
Fair enough, I was getting confused with discrimination law - although exceptions to the one year rule include "Dismissal relating to an employee asserting their rights under employment laws … Dismissal relating to an employee asserting their rights under the Employment Relations Act 1999, section 10, the right to be accompanied to a disciplinary or grievance hearing. " [http://www.compactlaw.co.uk/monster/empf3.html](http://www.compactlaw.co.uk/monster/empf3.html) ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762/23 "2004-10-24T23:38:58Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > Bah! That woul be “pArt-time” job. I have no idea how “pert” or otherwise **+MDI** is. :smack: Quite. I have pictures, if you’d like to see them :eek: > [@](#): > > I found that part interesting. You have one or more broken fixtures that he just hasn’t bothered to have fixed. Why? Money? Now that the last one is inoperable, at least one will be replaced. And not at his expense. I know next to nothing about employment law over there, but this just seems to scream, “Cheap, miserly jerk.” He’s as new to the job as I am. Virtually the whole work force has been replaced within the last few weeks, due to students moving on and new ones arriving. To be fair, in between him finding his feet and him being trained by head office, there hasn’t been much time to look what’s broken and what’s not. > [@](#): > > Any dismissal on account of refusal to pay, or any attempted unilateral renegotiation of your wages to account for the scales would be or amount to an unfair dismissal, if you pass the threshold criteria, a full list of which is beyond what I’m going to bother including this post, but I suspect most relevantly (as above) you need to have been employed for more than a year. I’ve been working there for only a few weeks, as has most of the staff, including the manager. > [@](#): > > I would be very interested to know if this is part of a larger chain, and what the head office view of this is, because they will be well aware that the new Scottish Parliament is looking for issues to flex its new found muscle, I’d imagine that Scottish workers being collectively punished and exploited will not go down well. Yes, it’s part of a chain (well, franchise), and a very well known one at that. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762/24 "2004-10-24T23:42:31Z")
If it’s a McChain, and the ‘manager’ is as idiotic as many of the mangers of such chains, then I stand by my earlier suggestion. Gather the ten people together, and state as one that he’s breaching all your contracts, and that you suggest that he refers the situation to his superior (trump card with an inept ‘manager’). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762/25 "2004-10-25T01:28:38Z")
I wonder if the manager is caught in between his employees and the company running the restaurant. Perhaps the company hired him by telling him that he was responsible for the care of the equipment and whenever anything was damaged either the employee responsible or the manager himself would have to pay for it. Now he’s decided that the only way to get out of paying for the scale himself is to charge all the employees, since he doesn’t know who did it. When you get together to tell him that you’re not going to pay for the scale, point out that he’s not liable for it either, and if the company says that he is, they are violating the law. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scottish-british-law-blanket-punishment-in-the-work-place/270762.md?page=1)