Hi .
I hope you guys can help me with a problem I have at work.
The company I work for does not have enough parking spaces on site to accommodate the employees, so they’ve made this rule that only permanent staff are allowed to park on site, which means the contractors have to find parking elsewhere. The company has a contract with a local hotel which can provide the extra spaces and also run a bus service to take us to and from the hotel. So we first have to go and park at the hotel, wait for the bus and then get into work. Same when we go home which adds alot of time onto journeys.
What I do is park down a side road right next to the company. That way I can go straight home and I get home in about 15 mins. A few other contractors park there as well and as its a residential area the residents are complaining to the company.
Now the job I do I have to finish at 6 o clock and the buses have specific times so if I parked at the hotel my next bus is at 6.15 by which time I am at home if I’m parked in a side road. Also I need to pick up my children by a certain time which wouldn’t be possible if I were to park at the hotel.
Because I am parking in this side road and the company has recieved complaints from residents I have been threatened with termination of my contract. Can they sack me for this?
If you're trying to find the phrase, "we reserve the right to terminate your contract if you park on the side street" then most probably you won't be able to find it. However, there could be something more general like the contract can be terminated for any reason etc.
Even if there isn't anything like that, they can make any number of (political) excuses like over-staffing etc to terminate your contract without getting into any sort of legal complications. Why would you want to work for a company anyway where there will be bitter feelings over the parking issue even if they won't be able to terminate your contract? The best option is to find a different parking solution that's convenient instead of getting into a confrontational situation.
Tabassum, this is too trivial a matter to risk your job over, I am sure there are some other solutions to your parking problem. Look at it from your company's point of view, neighborhood complaint against your company is negative publicity that they dont want.