In the UK can someone be fired for job hunting In the UK: Assuming that no job hunting or application has been done during work hours, can I be fired for openly job hunting out of hours? What if I advertise my availability on a site like LinkedIn?
In Great Britain Employees have two types of protections: contractual and statutory. It would be in breach of contract (&quot;wrongful dismissal&quot;) for an employer to dismiss without notice for job hunting but contractually there is nothing to stop an employer dismissing for any reason if they give the notice required (which may be only a week or two, say). Statutory protection may, however, prevent &quot;unfair dismissal&quot; but this generally only applies if someone has been employed for at least two years. There are some exceptions - e.g. dismissal as an act of religious/racial/sex discrimination etc. is prohibited even if the employee has less than 2 years service but these exceptions do not include job-hunting. So someone who has been employed for less than 2 years could be dismissed with notice for job hunting. There are also contractual and statutory protections in Northern Ireland. The contractual ones are the same as in the rest of the UK but some of the details of the statutory protections are different from GB.
united-states Even in the 49 U.S. states that are &quot;employment at will&quot; states in the U.S., there are reasons for which termination of employment is prohibited under both state and federal law, and termination without cause entitles an employee to unemployment benefit if certain other conditions are met. Most unionized employees, most public sector employees, most private sector employees in Montana, and a small number of employees (mostly senior management) with written employment contracts that so provide can only be fired for cause. There is a split of authority in the U.S. on the status of not making full disclosure is something that the employer required you to disclose and that you represented that you did disclose in the hiring process, such as your social media accounts. This is commonly called &quot;resume fraud&quot; even though it actually applies more broadly than resumes. Also, sometimes the question might be resolved differently under parallel state and federal laws. In general, in the U.S., asking about social media accounts is something that an employer may permissibly ask unless it is use to facilitate discrimination on a prohibited ground. One rule, which applies in some jurisdictions, is that &quot;resume fraud&quot; (i.e. a material misstatement in a resume or employment application) discovered by an employer after an otherwise wrongful termination can serve as a lawful basis for terminating employment that excuses the wrongful basis for termination of employment (at least assuming that the information withheld or misrepresented was on a matter that the employer could lawfully consider). Even if the information not disclosed was not itself a basis upon which the employer would not have hired someone, the dishonestly in the hiring process would be a basis for termination of employment. For example: The Seventh Circuit, which covers Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, has consistently held that it’s permissible for employers to reject job applicants and fire employees who are suspected of engaging in resumé fraud. The rationale for the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning is very straightforward: lying to employers is a legitimate and non-discriminatory basis for turning down an applicant or firing an employee. The cases of Carter v. Tennant Co., Aubuchon v. Knauf Fiberglass and Gilty v. Village of Oak Park all stand for this proposition. . . . . If the employer, as part of its investigation of the allegations in the lawsuit, discovers that the employee engaged in resumé fraud, can the employer use that belated discovery to its advantage? According to the United States Supreme Court, the answer is yes. More specifically, in McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co., the Supreme Court essentially held that an employer’s belated discovery of an independent, alternative basis for firing an employee (e.g., resumé fraud) can be used by the employer to reduce the plaintiff’s potential recovery. (Think of this as the employer’s “if we knew then what we know now, we wouldn’t have hired you in the first place” defense.) In other jurisdictions, &quot;resume fraud&quot; is not itself a basis for discharge, although it might be used as evidence to support an initially claimed valid reason for terminating employment in the face of an employee allegation that this was a mere pretext for wrongful termination. I don't know which states or how many U.S. states fall in each category. The former rule is the rule in almost all cases under federal private sector employment law. A variety of cases that address the question in the context of public employment sector employment can be found here. In addition to these general rules of law, there are also often reasonable questions of fact about whether a prospective employee substantially complied with an employer's social media disclosure question on a fact by fact basis that turns on the exact wording of the question and the reasonable interpretations that language could be given by the employee. For example, if a question has a social media disclosure requirement and one doesn't disclose a blog, one might reasonably argue that a blog is not a social media account, depending on the language used in the question.
It seems that this is known as a &quot;working interview&quot;. Asking a candidate to do actual work without paying for it is illegal under Texas law. However asking a person to take an extensive, even a multi-day, skills test is not. Asking a prospective web developer to submit a portfolio of prior work, or to design a web site for a fictional company, say for the Acme Company that supplies the Coyote, is legal. Had the applicant created a web site for the actual employer without being paid, the applicant would own the copyright, and the prospective employer would be in violation of Texas minimum wage law, and would have committed copyright infringement if they used the design, without securing permission. Statutory damages for wilful copyright infringement can be as high as $150,000, and as low as $750. A federal suit must be filed to collect such damages. However, if no actual work was done, I doubt that the applicant has a valid claim. One would need to consult a lawyer to see if some other basis for a claim would apply. Many lawyers will offer an initial consultation for free or a nominal charge. Here are some Texas sources on the issues with &quot;working interviews&quot;. The page &quot;Are “Working Interviews” Legal?&quot; from the Gay Reed law firm says: If you bring someone in for a working interview you must pay them for their time in compliance with state and federal law and make appropriate withholding. Some believe that since they are only going to be there for a few days, you don’t have to do new-hire paperwork. Just skip the I-9, background check, application, and W-2. Wrong again. If you hire anyone – for 1 day or 1,000, you have to do new hire paperwork. Depending on how long you would like to conduct your interview, we can create a day contract or a week contract for the prospective employee. This will limit your exposure under unemployment compensation laws, and you can even reduce the amount you pay. Where you might pay a good hygienist $20 per hour or more as a full time wage, you can pay them minimum wage during a working interview. The page &quot;What Is a “Working Interview” and How Does It Work? from CEDR HR Solutions says: A “working interview” is the act of assessing a job candidate’s skills and ability to fit with your existing team by bringing them in to perform work for your business temporarily before you officially bring them on board. Traditionally, working interviews take place after a successful verbal interview. ... However, using working interviews does not exempt you from your obligations as an employer, and performing working interviews without understanding their legal implications can actually get you in a lot of trouble. ... If your “interviewee” is performing work for your business that would usually be performed by one of your employees, in a legal sense, that person must be treated as an employee of your business. By testing your applicants’ abilities and knowledge without having them perform actual work for your business, you can get an idea of their skill level without putting your practice at risk. “Skills tests” are especially helpful when it comes to evaluating candidates for clinical positions. ... Instead of performing an unpaid working interview or trying to call someone an independent contractor when they do not fit those requirements, hire them and use a “Getting Acquainted” period to judge whether a new hire will be a long-term fit for your practice (90 days is often a good span of time for this). The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) has a page on &quot;Interviews&quot; which says: Interviews When interviewing applicants, apply the same standard that is applied to job applications - ask only about things that are directly related to the job requirements for the position under consideration. Watch out for tape-recording - the applicant might be tape-recording the interview without an employer's knowledge, and a video- or tape-recording of an interview would be discoverable in a discrimination claim or lawsuit. Tell the managers who conduct interviews to be extremely careful about note-taking during interviews - anything like that can be discovered in a claim or lawsuit - many discrimination cases have been lost due to careless and/or embarrassing comments written by interviewers. Test for whether something should be written down: would you feel comfortable explaining it in front of a judge and jury? &quot;Working interviews&quot; are not the same as pre-hire interviews at which an interviewee might demonstrate how he or she would carry out a sample task - an &quot;interview&quot; during which the worker performs actual work and receives what most companies would call &quot;on the job&quot; training or orientation to the company is work time - a company must pay at least minimum wage for such training time, satisfy all of the usual new-hire paperwork requirements (W-4, I-9, new hire report, and so on), and report the wages to TWC and IRS. The TWC can be reached at: 512-463-2222 The TWC page on the minimum wage says that Texas uses the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. It lists several exceptions, none of which seem to apply to the situation described in the question, or rather the situation that would have occurred had the applicant accepted an &quot;unpaid trial&quot; or &quot;working interview&quot;. The actual Texas law is Chapter 62 of the Labor Code The exact section is 62.051.
Without a jurisdiction, I'll just say that unless the comments made in the reviews and discussions were false, the individual is unlikely to have any claim, particularly given that you've stated that this occurred over the course of a year. However, the individual may be able to argue that they were not given sufficient notice of their performance, for example through performance evaluations, and given the length of time, it likely that one would have occurred. A company may be able to terminate an employee in spite of their overall contributions if they have breached policy - for instance, an otherwise outstanding employee who attracts negative customer reviews based in fact, and who is given ample opportunity and guidance to improve, may cause brand and reputational damage to the company; in this case, it is a commercial decision to retain or terminate the employee. As for what recourse the employee has, if the comments were factual, then it is likely that they will not have any, unless the employer has not adhered to procedural requirements - for instance, in Australia, you are required to provide an employee the opportunity to have a support person present at any meeting which may result in the employee's termination - or the employer broke some other law - for instance, discrimination, bullying or harassment law. Unfortunately, the contributions an employee makes does not necessarily negate the harm they do, and complaints based on an employee's performance are completely valid if factual.
You are probably an employee Answer these questions: Can you say “no” when the University offers you work? Or vice-versa, can they say “no” when you want to work? Can you subcontract the work? That is, can you hire someone to do what the University hired you to do? Do you control how and when you work? For example, when you break University rules are you subject to University discipline or is this treated as a breach of contract? Do you provide your own tools and equipment? Can you make a profit or loss (if you get paid by the hour the answer is “no”)? Do you take out your own public liability and/or professional indemnity insurance? If the answers to most of these questions are “no”, you’re an employee.
could this mean my employer owns the idea and anything I develop --since I would use the same technology for my idea that I do at work? No, unless by &quot;technology&quot; you mean the employer's materials or resources (see condition 3 of the clause). Your remark that &quot;this is completely and utterly unrelated to [employer's] business model&quot; survives items 1 and 2. Likewise, working on your idea outside hours survives the corresponding part of item 3. Would this also mean that any open-source software I develop outside of work automatically belongs to my employer? No, unless the software you develop is &quot;based on [your] knowledge [etc.] of (COMPANY)&quot;.
If you are on Tier 4 (students on full-time degree), you have more restrictions besides the number of hours. One of this is no self-employment (which includes freelance and consultancy or creating your own company).
It is. Part 2 Chapter 1 Section 8 specifically says &quot;People who are not married or civil partners do not have this characteristic.&quot; In practical terms, a claim for unlawful dismissal would not have to rely on this Act or this Characteristic. Many company handbooks refer to avoiding discrimination on &quot;marital status&quot;, so the claim could be made that the company had acted against policy. Not as strong as national law, but likely to succeed in absence of other factors. Single people who were expected to cover shifts that people with a family consistently avoided could argue constructive dismissal on &quot;making unreasonable changes to working patterns or place of work without agreement&quot; grounds. And cases of sexual harassment are as likely to refer to Sections 11 or 12 of the Act as to Section 8. There appears to be some interest in this - north of the border if not in England and Wales - and perhaps less jurisdictionally in Bella De Paulo's article for Psychology Today, which concludes &quot;All serious forms of prejudice and discrimination go through a similar process of going unrecognized, then getting dismissed and belittled once people start pointing them out, and in the best cases, eventually getting taken seriously. Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that when she was first appointed to the Supreme Court, the other judges did not think gender discrimination existed. ...&quot;