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Work & Money 
  |  Office Culture  |  Your rights  |  Sacked after only six months
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Sacked after only six months

by Work Rights Expert, Rachel Lewis

question
I've been in my job for about 6 months. I'll admit I've been finding it hard and have had some informal chats with my manager about how my performance has been going. I've had nothing formal in writing about my work though. Today, they just sacked me. I can't say I'm that surprised, and to be honest it's a bit of a relief, but I just want to know what the law might say about my situation.

answer
I'm sorry to hear about what's happened. I'm afraid that since you haven't been working for your employer for a year, the main legal protection of unfair dismissal doesn't apply to you. You are still entitled to receive your notice pay and if you think your boss may have decided to dismiss you on the basis of your race or sex, you could try to raise the point, since the discrimination laws don't require any period of qualifying service. You could also ask to appeal against the decision to dismiss you - your company should have an appeals procedure in place. An appeal would normally be conducted by a more senior manager, so you might find out more about the reason behind the decision to let you go.

You could also check to see whether your company has a contractual disciplinary procedure. If it does, it should really have followed it in dismissing you. In theory, you could bring a breach of contract claim on the basis that the company has failed to follow its own disciplinary procedure and that you are entitled to damages for loss of salary during the period a proper procedure would have taken. You may feel that this is going further than you want - but you could always raise the point with your boss and apply some legal/moral pressure to the company in an effort to get a bit of additional compensation.

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