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Sacked?
Spanish woman in UK for 44 years sacked over post-Brexit rules
A Spanish woman who has lived in England for 44 years has been sacked from her job in a care home because she is unable to prove she has the right to work in the UK, in a case illustrating the difficulties experienced by EU nationals as employers grapple with post-Brexit right-to-work regulations.
The 45-year-old woman, who arrived in Britain as an 11-month-old baby and who has never left the country, said she has tried more than 100 times to get through to the Home Office-run helpline in the past three weeks, but has never been able to speak to an adviser.
She has applied for EU settled status, but her application is stuck somewhere in the backlog of over 500,000 cases the Home Office has yet to process. She is the main breadwinner, with two children to support, and said her dismissal has left her struggling to buy food.
Charities helping EU nationals say the case is not unique. “We’ve seen this time and again when people with pending EUSS applications were asked to take unpaid leave, or were turned down from employment,” Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, said.
The care worker was called in for a formal meeting with her employers, a large residential care organisation, on 28 June, when managers discovered that she had no documentation proving her right to work in the UK.
“They asked me to prove that I came into the UK legally – it was like they were accusing me of coming here on the back of a lorry, but I came here as a baby. They asked me whether I could provide evidence that I had the right to work in the UK; I’ve been paying tax and national insurance here for almost 30 years. I was very upset – there were lots of tears on my side,” she said. She asked for her name and the name of her employers not to be printed because she hopes to get her job back.
After the meeting, she applied for EU Settled Status on 30 June, just before the deadline for applications – but has never had a British or a Spanish passport.
As a result she was unable to fill in a digital application for EU settled status; instead she had to make a complicated paper-based application, and send in her birth certificate. She received a receipt of the application via email, but has not received the formal certificate that would allow her to continue working while waiting to be granted EU settled status.
On 2 July she was invited to a disciplinary meeting at work and fired after being told the organisation risked being fined if it continued to employ her.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/spanish-woman-uk-44-years-060050115.html
A Spanish woman who has lived in England for 44 years has been sacked from her job in a care home because she is unable to prove she has the right to work in the UK, in a case illustrating the difficulties experienced by EU nationals as employers grapple with post-Brexit right-to-work regulations.
The 45-year-old woman, who arrived in Britain as an 11-month-old baby and who has never left the country, said she has tried more than 100 times to get through to the Home Office-run helpline in the past three weeks, but has never been able to speak to an adviser.
She has applied for EU settled status, but her application is stuck somewhere in the backlog of over 500,000 cases the Home Office has yet to process. She is the main breadwinner, with two children to support, and said her dismissal has left her struggling to buy food.
Charities helping EU nationals say the case is not unique. “We’ve seen this time and again when people with pending EUSS applications were asked to take unpaid leave, or were turned down from employment,” Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, said.
The care worker was called in for a formal meeting with her employers, a large residential care organisation, on 28 June, when managers discovered that she had no documentation proving her right to work in the UK.
“They asked me to prove that I came into the UK legally – it was like they were accusing me of coming here on the back of a lorry, but I came here as a baby. They asked me whether I could provide evidence that I had the right to work in the UK; I’ve been paying tax and national insurance here for almost 30 years. I was very upset – there were lots of tears on my side,” she said. She asked for her name and the name of her employers not to be printed because she hopes to get her job back.
After the meeting, she applied for EU Settled Status on 30 June, just before the deadline for applications – but has never had a British or a Spanish passport.
As a result she was unable to fill in a digital application for EU settled status; instead she had to make a complicated paper-based application, and send in her birth certificate. She received a receipt of the application via email, but has not received the formal certificate that would allow her to continue working while waiting to be granted EU settled status.
On 2 July she was invited to a disciplinary meeting at work and fired after being told the organisation risked being fined if it continued to employ her.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/spanish-woman-uk-44-years-060050115.html
Comments
There's this thing called personal responsibility.
She has been sacked despite this.
Therefore, what is the point of the deadline?
As the breadwinner she has no excuse, it was announced when we left the EU so it's not like she didn't have time.
As the employer, well they face a fine of upto £10, 000 per undocumented worker. You could argue they should have advised her but again, they're a business not an information service.
Although the thinking doesnt appear to be particularly joined up.
The Government set the date for the deadline.
It would have made sense to have allowed time for the applications to be processed, before the threat of being sacked came into play.
How can it be right for this woman to be fired while her application is being processed.
She has been in this country for 44 years, and has never left,
You would think that it would have been more sensible to allow her employers to continue to employ here after receiving confirmation that her application was being processed.
We are not exactly inundated with care workers.
In mitigation,
She claims to have phoned the helpline between 10 and 20 times per day, and has been unable to get through, other than to a recorded message.
She was unable to afford the 2k for a solicitor to help.
She has paid her tax and NI for almost 30 years.
Her husband and 2 kids are British.
If what The Home Office said (below) is true, then sacking her would seem to be illegal.
I dont think that anyone that had read the article in full could think anything other than this was completely unfair.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “There have already been more than 5.1m grants of status under the hugely successful EU settlement scheme. Anyone who applied to the scheme by the 30 June deadline, but has not had a decision, has their rights protected until their application is decided. This is set out in law.”
But Vicol said the Work Rights Centre had tried to help resolve the situation without success. “Home Office staff recommended that we call again in two weeks’ time, but this still leaves her, and others like her, in a highly vulnerable situation,” she said. “Employers rarely take the time to read through to the Home Office supporting guidance, that specifies the process for outstanding applications – instead they run out of patience. The hostile environment has created a culture of fear, where risk-averse employers are overreacting in their right to work checks.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/spanish-woman-uk-44-years-060050115.html