Dismissal from work.

[Kame]

Hey,

I thought maybe this would be a better place for me to post this. My fiance was involved in a car accident last October that injured his back and had him signed off work for just under 6 months. He returned to work yesterday as full time (even though he asked work if he could go back on reduced hours which they said no to) and was told that on Monday he has a meeting with his Store Manager as to whether he will keep his job or not.

Apparently due to past absences such as being off for one week with Swine Flu, they have to discuss his attendance at work and the future of his job. When he got signed off, myself or his mum would drop off his sick notes at work when the previous one ran out and he rang to inform work of this. He also had two meetings with an occupational health nurse who advised him to go back on reduced hours and possibly on a different department as he works as a butcher and has to lift crafts that weigh about 20/30 kilos.

His personnel manager has completely ignored all of this and has not attended either of his occupational health meetings or rang his home/mobile to ask anything in regards to him returning to work/his health.

I just wanted some advice on what he can do on Monday to prove that he was genuinely sick from work and that he has done his best to return to work. The car accident he was involved in was on the way to work and he was rear ended at a set of traffic lights, so it's not like there was anything he could have done to prevent it. His work are adament that his attendance is awful, although for the past 12-18 months he hasn't had a day off sick other than half a day which he took as holiday because my brother was dying of terminal cancer (which they weren't exactly symapathetic with either). He's taking in a union rep with him to the meeting and I'm going to give him the staff handbook to take with him, which point out that he followed the proceedures correctly, whilst his personnel manager has not.

Is there anything else that we can do? Or has anyone else been in a similar situation?

Thanks,
Lanny.

[MrsNutkin]

Could he get something from a Doctor? Doctors these days work on something called a 'fit note' when your fiance was signed as well enough to go back to work his Doctor could have put something in writing stating 'fit on reduced hours' or something similar.
I believe you are allowed to self certify for 7 days and then need to produce a med 3 certificate which is a fit note. (or unfit note as the case may be)

Unfortunately companies are taking advantage of those that don't follow procedure, these are hard times and companies may be looking for reasons to get rid of people.

[Kame]

Yeah, he had two fit for work notes, one stated that he should go back on reduced hours and when his work said he couldn't do that, he had to get another that said he was fully fit full time.
He has completely followed the procedure for being off sick, it's just because he's been off sick before that apparenly his attendance is too poor.