DH's work trying to stop flexible working agreement

[lou031205]

DH put a FWA application in May '09. It went through in August, giving him a 4 day week. It specifically says 'in order to allow you to care for your DD, "x", who is in receipt of DLA".

His company has been taken over, and their workers all work Mon-Fri, 6-6. Impossible for us. We are on our knees as it is, and DH works 4 days, 8-5. There is a meeting tomorrow, and he has been told that they will want him to go to a 5 day week, at least.

I spoke to ACAS, and they have said TUPE, DDA, unfair dismissal, etc. Scary stuff though.

Have any of you got any experience here?

...no experience , but have you tried the 'employment issues' section on MN.
I had a propblem a while back and got a few handy tips there.

Hi

A similar thing happened to my husband when his company was taken over. He was eventually made redundant but they tried to make it as difficult as they could for him as they wanted him to leave (they didn't like flexible working) so they wouldn't have to pay redundancy.

As I understand it, once a flexible working agreement has been agreed by both parties in accordance with the statutory this then becomes a permanent change to the contract of employment so, if an employer later wants to change that they must have formal discussions with the employee. If they do not, the employer can be found in breach of contract.

There are a variety of grounds which can apply to the decision to try and change terms and conditions and you need proper advice on that.

There is certainly recent caselaw on DDA in this area (Liversidge - I'm a human rights not an employment lawyer!) and you need a specialist.

If you are not in the union, try Thompsons solicitors - a national firm who may give initial free advice.

mysonben - I might C&P, thanks

debs40, we have joined Unite tonight, meeting isn't til tomorrow. So far it is rumour, so hope that will qualify as 'joined prior to issue arising' by the skin of teeth. Will look up Liversidge.

I'm going mad...it's Attridge, not Liversidge (a totally different case) or Coleman v Attridge to be precise.

This was an European Court of Justice (Case C303/06) case which created a type of associated discrimination protection.This is aimed at strengthening the law to protect people from discrimination when they are associated with someone with any of the protected characteristics, for example, as their carer.

This includes those associated with disabled persons. The new Equality Bill extends this protection to other groups.