I used to work for the NHS. I worked for them for nine years before applying for a career break to accompany my husband to Australia. He's a doctor spending a year here as part of his (also NHS) training. We are currently in Sydney.
The NHS trust I worked for rejected my application for a career break despite the fact I fitted all their criteria for granting one. They said they wanted to change the structure of the department and couldn't guarantee my job on my return.
We went to a grievance procedure which began in Janaury. My grievance was in two parts, (1) the decision and (2) the way my manager had handled it, as she had witheld important information from the people who had to make the decision and this had also delayed the process of them deciding whether I could go to Australia so that by the time they finally said "no" it was too late for us to back out.
The union advised me to resign and they would hear the grievance in my absence.
The first part of the grievance was held on Janaury 2nd and they were supposed to respind within 5 working days but in fact didn't respond until the middle of march, and only after I'd prompted the union into asking them for a decision.
After that I e-mailed my regional union rep to ask what to do next but he took ages to reply (weeks) and when he did reply he said we would appeal the decision a second time and that there was no time limit for doing so. He also stated in his e-mail that he had been "deliberately tardy" in replying back to the NHS.
When I took this to a second appeal, the NHS trust said I had run out of time to respond, which means that not only did the union wrongly advise me there was no time limit but they also were to blame for me missing the deadline.
What can I do?