When the Royal Arsenal stopped making munitions in the 1990s, Woolwich lost the employer that had defined it for three centuries, and the borough's working life has been reassembled since from very different pieces. Employment solicitors in Greenwich now act for nurses and porters at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, lecturers and administrators at the University of Greenwich, council staff, security and bar workers at the O2, warehouse and delivery drivers on the Charlton and Thamesmead industrial estates, hotel and restaurant staff in the tourist streets of Greenwich town centre and, since the Elizabeth line, a growing number of commuters whose employers are in the City and Canary Wharf.
Each group brings its own problems. The hospital and the university generate discrimination, whistleblowing and sickness-absence cases that must go through internal procedures first. Logistics and warehousing bring questions about agency status, holiday pay, deductions and dismissals at the end of a shift. Event and hospitality work at the O2 and in Greenwich is casual and seasonal, with zero-hours contracts and unpaid trial shifts. Commuters arrive with redundancy consultations and settlement agreements, which must be signed off by an independent adviser and are usually paid for by the employer.
Acas early conciliation has to start within three months less one day of the dismissal or the act complained of; claims then go to the London South employment tribunal in Croydon, with many hearings held by video. Employers across the borough rely on the same firms for contracts, handbooks, disciplinary processes and TUPE.
A first conversation is usually free, settlement agreement advice fixed-fee, and a contested claim hourly or staged, sometimes on a no-win, no-fee basis.
Greenwich employment firms are listed below, verified first, then by distance. Read the general guide to employment law solicitors, the explainer on what employment law covers and, for employers, business law solicitors in Greenwich; employment law solicitors in Lewisham serve the next borough west.
Verified