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Employees cannot contract out of unfair dismissal protection
[ch 10: pages 273-274]The law does not allow employees to give up their right to claim unfair dismissal except in very tightly controlled circumstances (see page 425: Settling a claim). This is because in this context the law recognises that the employment relationship is unequal and that employees are at risk of being forced to give up their rights.
For example, employees are not allowed to agree in advance that particular events, if they happen, will end the contract automatically:
Mrs Igbo asked for extended holiday to visit her family in Nigeria. Her employer agreed, provided she accepted that her employment would end automatically if she failed to return by the agreed day. When she failed to return, the Court of Appeal refused to rule that the contract had terminated automatically, finding instead that there had been a dismissal. Any other conclusion would have meant that the parties’ arrangement circumvented the tribunal’s jurisdiction to decide whether a dismissal was fair or unfair.
Igbo v Johnson Matthey Chemicals Ltd [1986] IRLR 215