unfair dismissal?

[princesssazi]

i have recently had my contract terminated because i was covering a maternity leave for 6 months and i was told that after the 6 month period i would have to leave if there were no other postions available. However when the period was up there were 5 other vacancies available which weren't offered to me. Was this unfair dismissal? Can i take the company to court because of this or would there be no point?

[WendyS]

I assume your contract was for a 6 month temporary contract which you were prepared to accept at the time. Unless the contract /offer letter specifically states that at the end of this period you might have the possibility of being offered any other suitable available jobs, I don't think your employer was under any obligation to offer you anything else.

I imagine that if your ex employer had a competent HR Department which was aware of 5 other vacancies needing to be filled when your contract expired, they would have considered you for one of them as your performance record was known. Possibly they did consider you (without your knowledge) and decided you weren't suitable.

[buildersmate]

Aside from the points made above, one doesn't a right to claim Unfair Dismissal at all until you have worked for 12 months. Unless the claim is on grounds of a few things like TU membership, pregnancy (your pregnency - not covering someone else's mat. leave), sex or religious discrimination (when the 'right' starts from day one). This doesn't seem to be applicable in your case, from what you say.

[buttoneyes]

Disagree Buildersmate - I work in HR and practically anyone can claim unfair dismissal these days.

Basically Princesssazi, you knew when your contract was due to expire - therefore you should have taken it upon yourself to enquire about the jobs. It's not the job of the HR department to consider you for every role that becomes available... I work in HR and it would be impossible to remember who leaves when to offer them a position that they might be interested in. Hence, we use the company intranet and notice boards to cover ourselves.
In other words, treat this as a learning curve. Next time you accept a fixed term contract - always be on the lookout for other positions that you could apply for. You wouldn't get anywhere with unfair dismissal because the responsibility lies with you to look for alternative employment, not wait for the employer to do it for you!