Little bit of legal advice about redundancies?

[Meowster]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anybody would be able to help me. Long story short, a lot of people in my company recently go made redundant due to restructuring. However, there was a number of cases of people being made redundant whose positions were not actually redundant - they were just using it as an excuse to remove these people from the company. In these cases the company quietly paid out extra to those people.

In my case, I was made redundant along with another girl from my department, leaving only one other person there. It seemed a little ridiculous to me that they left only one girl in this department when clearly the workload is far greater than one person can handle. In my job description, although my primary focus was recruitment, it also said that I should help out in day to day running of the HR department, but nonetheless I was made redundant.

I've now learned that they've hired a temp to help in the day to day running of HR, which seems to imply to me that my job wasn't in fact redundant but it was another case of the company quietly removing people that they didn't want/removing dead wood.

Can anybody give me advice on this situation? Do you know what my rights are? much appreciated all!

[SSH]

I recommend talking to the local Citizen's Advice Bureuax who will be able to offer factual rather than anecdotal advice and can spell their own name correctly, too.

Similar things have happened to others here at my office and most people thought that challenging it wasn't worth the bother and that they'd rather spend their time trying to find a new job rather than preparing for Industrial Tribunals.

[Darth Mandarb]

The State I live (and work) in is "Right to Work" state (I believe that's the term).  Basically it means the company can fire you for whatever reason they want and there's nothing you can do about it.

I have to say that using the, "made redundant" excuse is most likely a cover-story the company is using to hide the fact that they are in financial trouble and need to remove the excess burden of a lot of salary/hourly positions.  I think this is evidenced by the fact that they removed you and another girl from your department and hired a temp to fill the void left (temps are always paid less and have no contract and are an interim solution until the company gets back on it's feet financially)

I am, of course, just speculating ...

I used to work for a company in Ft. Lauderdale that was having cash-flow problems and they laid off 12 employees to lessen the monies they were paying out as salary to these employees.  Then they hired two 'temps' the next week.  It's standard operating procedure.

Personally speaking I'd just move on and not waste any time/energy on it.

[Nikolas]

harsh and speculative: They fired you! What can you do?

It all comes down to the contract you had (if you had). When we were in London, my wife had a contract which stated that both parties need 28 days of written notice before quiting the contract. Furthermore there were some details against my wife (not to work in another company fighting the previous one, etc), and certain rights (especially regarding pregnancy, where we had the major problem, since we had our second son 3 years ago).

In all, it does seem somewhat reasonable for a company to be able to fire people. In the end you may not fit their current structure! It really isn't such a big deal (although I would be pissed as well), and the excuse they gave maybe be a sack of BS!

Other than that, see what you can salvage. Perhaps a company laptop , the mobile, etc. Maybe some GOOD references? etc... And find a new job. As the above posters say, it's not really worth it trying to fight back! There must be other computer game companies (it is what you work on, no?) around the uk, and plenty of them in fact, so hunt them down and start over ,with the previous experience in your advantage!

Best of luck!

[RickJ]

Since it seems like they are just downsizing their payroll and don't have a problem with you personally, why don;t yhou offer to work for them on a temp or sub-contractor basis.  You already know how they do things and what needs to be done, etc...  I know, firing someone and then hiring them back as a contractor seems counter-intuitive but it happens more often than you would expect.   

[Ryan Timothy B]

It's weird how they call you being 'redundant'.  In Canada if the company has no work for you and you become, as you say redundant, they lay you off.  While you're laid off the company is supposed to Recall the employee after a certain amount of time.  If you find out before or after the Recall expectation that it was an indefinite lay off, that there is no job for you anymore, you can call the 'labour board' or sue the company.

Ontario Labour Laws - Lay-off

I haven't looked this part up, but I 'believe' that once the company hires someone to replace your job while you're laid off you could contact the labour board and get severance pay up to that day / or you may have to sue them.


Pretty much every company is feeling the burn right now.
My company a year ago actually imported about 20 Mexicans to work for $11.50 an hour, giving them 1 or 2 year contracts to live in Canada and work there.  (most Canadians that work there are paid around $14 to do the jobs the Mexicans are doing)
Because of this market crash, they laid off almost 40 people in the last two months.  Mostly on night shift.  And all the workers that got laid off were Canadians that were higher paid.
Almost seems unfair.

I even almost got laid off (boss's son told me), but I transfered to a different section of the company days before the lay offs.
I have been trained for literally every job in that company in the 4 years I've been there, including every labour job or forklift job.
If they laid me off, and I caught wind that they hired someone else to do a job I've been trained to do, I would try to fight the company to the ground.. just to be a miserable prick.

[Layabout]

It is very easy in the UK to get around the redundancy laws. You just need to re-name the position and bam, your job is made redundant and a new job is created... Just with a different title.

To be fired, a reason isn't required if you have been in the job for less than 2 years, unless you believe it was on the grounds of a statutory right, of which you have to prove, provided approprate notice is given, or payment is made in lieu of notice, or you are granted 'garden leave', which is a period of paid holiday, outside of your original statutory holiday pay rights.

I read alot into the employment laws, as I've had similar situations before.

Hope it helps.

There is a lot of information of the Department of Trade and Industry website (whoops, its now the Berr, not to be confused with my favourite beverage ) http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/index.html

Directgov is also a good source of information http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm

[Creed Malay]

This is why unions are awesome, people. If you have a chance to join a trade union, do so! It is like being able to call up the mob if you are ever in such job based strife.

[Pumaman]

there was a number of cases of people being made redundant whose positions were not actually redundant - they were just using it as an excuse to remove these people from the company. In these cases the company quietly paid out extra to those people.

This is fairly normal practice. The question is, did they pay you a little extra and get you to sign some form of resignation to go with it? If so then you've basically accepted their pay-off and it's the end of the story.

But if not then the question is ... even if they have done something dodgy and you have a legal right to appeal to get your job back, would you want to go back and work for a company that treated you like that?

This is why unions are awesome, people. If you have a chance to join a trade union, do so! It is like being able to call up the mob if you are ever in such job based strife.

I concur ... except that after being a member of a union for a year I discovered that 10% of my membership fee was being donated to Tony Blair. Be careful what you sign up to!!

[Ryan Timothy B]

Unions are good for employees, NOT employers.

Here's some off topic rambling about unions:
The union is trying to get my father's employees to join.  If they do, he'll lose his business.  There are ways around it though.  If you employ someone for 4 hours a Month, steady, they are considered employees.  My father has me, my brothers, and other family members to come into the grocery store once a month to work 4 hours just tip the scale on the union.

It takes 50% of the employees to sign up to get a union.  Management isn't allowed to sign.  So out of all the store's managers; deli, bakery, produce, grocery, meat, etc.  Out of only 25 workers, it significantly lowers the amount of employees that can actually sign up for a union.  So assuming the remainder is 15 non-management employees, they would need 13 (which is 50%) of those workers to sign.
Lets say all of them do sign, 15 workers is higher than 50% of the 25 workers.  But what the workers don't know is that the 4 hours me and my brothers have been working a month, will tip the scale on any union, therefore the union attempt is cancelled... and I Believe a union can't be attempted again for another year.
/off topic

Unions are one good reason why USA is crippling right now.  Look at the GM plant, that is a perfect example as to why unions kill companies.  They've laid off thousands so far.