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> HR and legal across the UK are probably updating their company procedures right now to include every imaginable reason they might want to fire someone. No, t

> HR and legal across the UK are probably updating their company procedures right now to include every imaginable reason they might want to fire someone. No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive. If the contract was worded differently, the court may not have used this interpretive rule. If the wording was a little more broad, the court may have worked to determine whether "swearing at your boss" could reasonably fit into the terms.

Aurornis 1y ago
> No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive. Yes, and that's why I said HR and Legal are updating their boilerplate to be more exhaustive.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  UK companies are not going to be able to out engineer UK labor protections to arrive at the US' at will experience. Such is the point of labor laws and protections. They can update the procedures, they'll still end up in court or tribunals. This is not the US (thankfully).
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    Obviously contracts can't override labor laws I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws. If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated, contracts will now have a lot of fireable offenses explicitly enumerated. That's not evading the law, that's literally how you comply with the law.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      > If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated... They don't, nor does this decision. The company simply didn't follow the rules of the employment contract, which both parties had agreed to.
    - scott_w 1y ago
      > I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws. No they're not. This ruling makes no difference to the legal, employment or contractual landscape of the UK. Reading the ruling, it was resolved in exactly the way any competent HR lawyer would expect. The employer was bang out of order and was rightly slapped down by the court. > If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated No they don't. As others have pointed out: the ruling flags that the contract itself enumerates gross misconduct offences. Some of which include "excessive swearing" or "swearing at customers." Given the context of what the contract does enumerate, the court found that the contract does not consider this, obviously, lesser misconduct was out of scope of gross misconduct, as per the terms of the contract. If the contract did not include such a specific list, but merely described a more broad category of things that are considered gross misconduct, then the court might have ruled differently.
_benedict 1y ago
No, the ruling expressly refers to the list as non exhaustive, but given the other related references to misconduct (including the use of inappropriate language) it was not reasonable to infer that this example was gross misconduct.

Aurornis 1y ago

> No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive. Yes, and that's why I said HR and Legal are updating their boilerplate to be more exhaustive.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
UK companies are not going to be able to out engineer UK labor protections to arrive at the US' at will experience. Such is the point of labor laws and protections. They can update the procedures, they'll still end up in court or tribunals. This is not the US (thankfully).
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Obviously contracts can't override labor laws I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws. If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated, contracts will now have a lot of fireable offenses explicitly enumerated. That's not evading the law, that's literally how you comply with the law.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated... They don't, nor does this decision. The company simply didn't follow the rules of the employment contract, which both parties had agreed to.
  - scott_w 1y ago
    > I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws. No they're not. This ruling makes no difference to the legal, employment or contractual landscape of the UK. Reading the ruling, it was resolved in exactly the way any competent HR lawyer would expect. The employer was bang out of order and was rightly slapped down by the court. > If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated No they don't. As others have pointed out: the ruling flags that the contract itself enumerates gross misconduct offences. Some of which include "excessive swearing" or "swearing at customers." Given the context of what the contract does enumerate, the court found that the contract does not consider this, obviously, lesser misconduct was out of scope of gross misconduct, as per the terms of the contract. If the contract did not include such a specific list, but merely described a more broad category of things that are considered gross misconduct, then the court might have ruled differently.

_benedict 1y ago

No, the ruling expressly refers to the list as non exhaustive, but given the other related references to misconduct (including the use of inappropriate language) it was not reasonable to infer that this example was gross misconduct.