Dissmissal without warning

THE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT 1971, hurriedly if not indecently buried, introduced a major innovation into the law relating to dismissal; the notion of unfair dismissal was something entirely new to English law although there had long been (and still is) common law relating to wrongful dismissal, a very different matter. The latter illustrates the general legal rule that where a contract is unjustifiably repudiated, an action will lie. Thus when an employer dismisses an employee without proper notice and without good reason according to the law, this amounts to repudiation of the contract between them. Rights under this heading are founded in the law of contract.