Appeal against unfair dismissal.

[Jade3791]

Hey guys!

My first post on here, but an unfortunate one. My union rep is amazing, but I just wanted some third party opinions.

November 2015, I was dismissed with immediate effect from my delivery officer role. I was dismissed for failure to make contact with them over a 2 weeks period, after leaving work mid-shift due to management breaching rehab plans set out by OH assist, my union rep and myself. But my illnesses have been on going for a year and half due to out of the ordinary events, which RM are aware of. I have attended my appeal hearing as I completely dispute the actions of the management. Let me tell you a little bit about my circumstances.

To begin with I would like to explain a little bit about the diagnoses that I have received from my GP and Psychiatrist alike. Reactive depression is one of those and the second is something called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I feel it is extremely relevant that I explain my illnesses, as they are closely related to my actions that led to the dismissal and thereafter. Borderline personality disorder, is a serious mental illness that causes unstable moods, behaviour, and relationships. Women with BPD are more likely to have co-occurring disorders such as major depression and anxiety disorders. Individuals that live with BPD have, relative to the norm, very reactive emotional systems. Basically, that means that my sensitivity to responding emotionally to events, especially negative ones, is considerably high. So what others might perceive to be really quite minor events (being sent further away from the office on singleton delivery) can result in a powerful wave of emotion for me. Negative states are very difficult or me to regulate and it can take a lot of time for me to manage them. Also, suffering with a co-concurring disorder also will have contributed. The BPD is hard enough to deal with but dealing with depression on top of that, it can be crippling. I still struggle to this day with what happened, and all I want to know is when will I open my eyes in the morning and this not be the first dreadful thing I think about, after I've punched my way out of feeling like I'm only running on 50% power because of depression? The depression is severe enough that it has warranted a lengthy stay in hospital and I have attempted to end my life on two occasions, which management are fully aware of, and it is mentioned in the OH assist reports. With that in mind, should they not have at the very least contacted my family, as a duty of care, when I left work and didn’t contact them for so long? That is surely a reasonable adjustment they should have made, as well as a duty of care. I am not using my illnesses as an excuse for my actions, they do explain them though.

“Why did you fail to make contact?”

The nature of my illnesses lead me withdraw and become very introvert when stress is involved. Stress, in this instance would be the breach of the rehab plan and sending me on a singleton delivery, on the opposite side of town. Even though it had been re-iterated on several occasions, by myself, OH assist and my rep that this should not happen under any circumstances. The days after I went AWOL from work, the depression was that impenetrable that it was difficult for me to even move out of bed let alone contact anybody. For weeks I felt totally helpless. Wandering through busy streets, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but grey skies, broken buildings that are falling apart. The world becomes colourless and in all honesty my job was one of the last things on my mind. In fact the only thing that was on my mind, was ending my life. It did become really quite serious and the police had to be contacted on the 22nd November as I had left my Grandad’s in quite an emotional state, and no one could contact me.

“Why is the dismissal unreasonable?”

In my opinion I would consider the dismissal to be extremely unfair. On the business side of things I can kind of understand why they dismissed me, but morally I cannot. From the business point of view, they were losing money for every day that I was on the sick, which they informed me of on several occasions. A business has to make profits and with me on the sick, I was affecting this. Morally and as far as the management are concerned, I feel the decision is extremely rash and not supported by anything other than my failure to make contact, which I have explained my reasons for. I found my encounter with the DSM, to be extremely intimidating and almost threatening. He is fully aware of my issues and showed no compassion whatsoever. This is not a personal attack on him or any other manager for that matter, I just feel as though I haven’t been treated fairly by the business. Just because my disability isn’t visible it doesn’t mean that it isn’t present and life-altering. I am still in constant contact with the community mental health team, and I have a care coordinator that visits me weekly to check up on my mental health because it isn’t yet fully stable. The management are also aware of this. Irrespective of my mental health being unstable, I have still attempted to attend work on several occasions, without any support from the management as work was the only stable thing I had in my life. BPD is not well-suited to an unstable lifestyle, which is why I am appealing, I need to work, for the sake of my health. But the ignorance and negligence of the management has led to work doing the complete opposite and exasperating my symptoms. Rather than dismiss me, I feel as though they should have made adjustments (covered by the equality act), until my symptoms improved. In addition, documented in all the OH assist reports, they are also aware that flare ups of my symptoms is likely until I have made a full recovery.

“What would happen if the dismissal was reversed? How can I be satisfied that you will adhere to the required standards if I were to reinstate you?”

The main basis of me adhering to the standards would rest solely on the correct rehab plan, and it being followed by the management. With regards to my illnesses research has shown that outcomes are very good for people with BPD, particularly if they are engaged in treatment; which I am at the minute. There will be a reduction in my symptoms with the treatment, and this will restore normality for me. This will have a positive impact of my life, professionally and socially. I will be well equipped to handle negative, emotional situations with the techniques that I will be learning in therapy, so the events of early November 2015, shouldn’t happen again, if I continue to partake in my therapy, and the management adhere to rehab plans.

I was just wondering, if I were to win the appeal hearing, and I was offered my job back, what would happen if was reinstated with backdated pay etc? And what would happen if I didn't want to be reinstated?

Any replies would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks in advance
Jade

[rehabron]

As you have already had your appeal interview then there isn't really much assistance to give other than I am sure that at the appeal interview you presented specialist reports confirming your medical condition from your GP and your psychiatrist and also the OH Assist recommendations and the rehabilitation plan that they set and was not honoured by RM management. I trust that your service record is unblemished up to yours current circumstances. The appeals manager can uphold, revoke or lessen the decision to dismiss and if successful your wages will be back-dated but refusal to be reinstated would not be a good idea. I am surprised with your current medical conditions that IHR was never offered. Although you have provided reasons for not being in contact with your employer for 2 weeks is the sticky one as you have more than likely been charged with abandonment of duty or AWOL. Good luck with your appeal.

[PHARRY]

Sorry I don't know

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

I would advise you to get in touch with linda roy who is the woman's officer within cwu, she is the best person for you to contact for advice

for what it's worth I think you should consider what would have been a reasonable decision to dismiss, for example taking the 2 or so weeks of non contact, where should the line have been drawn (the line should have been drawn at the time you had discussions with oh assist) should royal mail be expected to give you your job back after a month of non contact or even 6 months? obviously at 6 months that's an extreme example and in that circumstance yes it would be unreasonable to expect rm to give you your job back so you need to decide what would have been a reasonable limit and argue from there.

As for saying rm should have contacted your family that's actually a little dodgy, there's a potential breach of the data protection act unless they have eypur explicit permission to do so before hand, so on the other side of the coin during that two weeks would it have been reasonable to assume that your family should have contacted royal mail on your behalf

[General Mannerheim]

I hope your rep is good.
I think you have hit the nail on the head regarding a duty of care and I find it quite surprising that knowing the circumstances you have presented here and knowing how keen management are to chivvy people when they are sick that they didn't attempt a home visit?
As for the duty of them making a reasonable adjustment then Wankmans(or one of the other cretins these lot use as lawyers) will say that in order for a reasonable adjustment to have been made or indeed attempted that they must have been informed of the duty to do so,which is utter crap.
I hope your appeal goes well.

[Jade3791]

Thanks for the quick replies everyone!!

My absence record was in good shape prior to this last year. The management have just been terrible from the get go. They don't really seem to be bothered about their employees, as long as the work gets done. I mean the DSM even pulled me into his office off the record, and told me to either resign or he was going to dismiss me (which he couldn't have done at that moment in time as I was and still am covered by the Equality Act due to the nature of my illnesses) this was before I left work for the final time. He was very threatening and not compassionate at all. The rehab plan should have been put in place from the very start, as suggested by OH assist and my psychiatrist. Events that I had been through created high levels of anxiety for me and it was suggested that as I returned to work, AFTER a three months hospital stay, I was not to go out on singleton deliveries until further notice. What did the management do on my first day back? Send me out on a singleton delivery!!! They even contacted me WHILST I was in hospital!!! I am not even sure I even want my job back, its just the principal. I just feel like they have treated me so, so badly and they don't have to deal with the repercussions. I should find out about my appeal within the next few weeks. Hopefully it will be good news x

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Just remember that even though someone may have an illness/injury covered by the equalities act, they can still be dismissed because of it, it's not a cast iron shield which protects everytime as long as correct procedures are followed then people can be dismissed with these issues

[Jade3791]

Even if they breached rehab plans in several occasions?

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

Even if they breached rehab plans in several occasions?

potentially yes, end of the day the rehab plan is only a recommendation it's not binding, a manager can completely disregard it if he wants(though that may give grounds for a win at a tribunal)

[mudmonster]

Even if they breached rehab plans in several occasions?

potentially yes, end of the day the rehab plan is only a recommendation it's not binding, a manager can completely disregard it if he wants(though that may give grounds for a win at a tribunal)

Well if that.s the case why have ATOS at all ,if Royal Mail aren't going to follow the recommendations.

[mightyowler]

Sorry to hear about your struggle with depression..

As for RM disregarding the OH assist report, nothing new with RM management, I had the same last year so I challenged management about this, and the response was "The person responsible for putting this rehab plan together isn't even a doctor, all he does is read questions from a computer screen" wtf????