Q: I broke a limb and have been signed off work for 4 months. I agreed with my employer to work from home while I recover. I have heard they will lay me off when I return. What are my rights?
Apr 27 2007
Answered by: Peter Done Ask a question
I don’t know what you mean by “lay me off…” There are two common interpretations possible, one means “they are going to sack me,” and the other means “send me home because there is no work and I will be called back to work once there is some.”
If you mean the former then, depending on your length of service you are protected from unfair dismissal if you have been employed continuously for over one year, and if under one year you may have contractual rights under your contract of employment which you might be able to pursue if they commit a breach of contract in dismissing you.
If the lay-off is because of no work then the first step is to check your contract to see if they have a contractual right to lay you off. Even if the contract does not contain such a clause your employer may still have a right to do so arising out of custom and practice (i.e. the company has habitually done this in the past) or there may be some industry agreement - the Agricultural Wages Board operates one. Also if none of those are applicable it is possible the company would negotiate the introduction of such a clause, to which you might wish to agree, if the alternative was dismissal for redundancy.
Employees laid off are entitled to Statutory Guarantee Pay (SGP) for the first five days of lay off; to nothing for the next 12 weeks and then five more days of guarantee pay, followed by a further 12 weeks of no pay etc. The daily rate of SGP is £19.60 or a normal day’s pay whichever is the lower. There are variations to cover past weeks of lay-off.
There are complicated rules about resignations and the right to redundancy pay as well as counter-notice letters by employers in lay-off situations. As these are only rumours at present I would not consider doing anything other than “wait and see” and only consider taking further advice if something does happen!
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