he Employment Act1980,,, Notice, 1
Page 38
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by Douglas Ainley IPLOYMENT contracts genery require proper notice to be .minated lawfully. The length notice required varies accordto individual circumstances hough section 49 of the Em)yment Protection Consolidan Act 1978 (EPCA) provides inimum statutory notice nods.
employees after four weeks` rvice require one week's noe, after two years service, two Ieks' notice, thereafter rising one week's notice per corn;led year of service to a maxiAM of twelve weeks' notice. ceptionally however because the type of employment ntract or the conduct of the rties, notice is not required. Fixed term contracts, for a finite period of time — one ar for instance — expire when 0 period ends and no notice is luired at common law. Such ntracts are more common for nior managers. The statutory nimum notice periods only ply where notice is required at mmon law.
However, to prevent em)yers getting round the giving notice by engaging all emoyees on short fixed-term ntracts and renewing them riodically, EPCA provides that lployees with 12 or more .eks' continuous employment '10 have been enployed under ed term contracts for four .)eks or less, are covered by the atutory minimum notice Hods, Contracts for a specific task, pire once the relevant work is mpleted — for example em3ying a driver to clear one site. lain, at common law, no notice required so it seems that the atutory minimum notice nods will not apply. Some lubts exists because EPCA proJes that the statutory notice nods will not apply only iere a contract for a specific ;k is not expected to, and does It in fact, last more than 12 eeks. Only the shortest ntracts are not protected.
However in Wiltshire County )uncil v NATFME & Guy the flirt of Appeal said that specific sk contracts are determinable without notice or dismissal. This leaves a large gap in the employment protection legislation since if no dismissal occurs for the purposes of the unfair dismissal and redundancy payments legislation, a right to notice on dismissal is meaningless.
Tribunals are however reluctant to hold that employment contracts are for a specific purpose only which determine automatically without notice once the specific work is done — otherwise employees would lose out. Such contracts are endorsed only where each party entered into them with full knowledge of the circumstances. The employee must know he is being engaged only for a specific task and that it is not expected to last for more than twelve weeks.
That the employer alone knows, without telling the employee, will not suffice. Hauliers who employ drivers for seasonal work — during harvest time for instance — must ensure that employees know the work is of a limited nature.
The parties' conduct may amount to evidence against such a limited contract — where the employee is told he is dismissed or is given notice, for example. Equally if the contract is only for a specific task, the employer cannot change the employee's job content.
Employers therefore should not try to "invent" such contracts to escape their notice obligations.
The statutory minimum notice periods do not apply to employees of under four weeks' service. Similarly various categaries of workers are excluded — registered dock workers, fishermen, merchant seamen, civil servants etc — largely because they are covered by separate arrangements.
Employees who work wholly or mainly outside Great Britain aree also excluded unless they ordinarily work in Great Britain and the external work is for the same employer. Therefore longdistance drivers, on Continental runs, whose "base" is in Great 'Britain are protected by the statutory notice provisions.