Redundancy - what can we expect/demand?

[Robert86]

Hello all,

I work in a medium sized workshop that is one site for a large company that has other sites in the UK, and we've recently been informed that our site will be closed by the end of June as the owners of the site will no longer be renting the site to our company.

 

We received letters from our management during a "meeting" in which we weren't invited to ask any questions and told to "simply read the letter", which stated as mentioned before the site would be closing at the end of June and that employees would be able to move to one of the other sites and that "redundancies are a possibility". We were also told a list would be placed on the company notice board for people to volunteer to be representatives for the workforce, and that the list would be taken down on Friday (one day after it had been put up) and employees could vote on Monday and Tuesday as to who they wanted as representatives.

 

A notice was placed on the noticeboard just over a month ago stating that the site may be moved to another location, and a new contract was issued just afterwards to all employees which included clauses such as "flexible working hours" and "unpaid leave of up to four weeks" if the management decided there is not enough work. The majority of the workforce had delayed signing the contract as we had all formally requested a number of the points to be clarified and stated that they were unfair, as we felt that the contract was being issued to cheat us out of a paid notice period and possibly redundancy, as no employment address was initially stated on the contract; the address has now been stated on a contract "addendum" we received, but the points we questioned were mainly reiterated instead of being further explained.

 

Besides the legality of issuing such a contract when the state of the company was in such question, as no-one has been given formal notice of redundancy to my understanding and there are over 100 contractual employees I believe the employer must give a minimum of 90 days formal redundancy notice? Or can the employer simply wait until there are less than 100 employees, assuming some will leave to find new work now we're aware of what's happening and then only give us 30 days formal notice? If the place is closing, will the employer (through the new contract) be able to tell contractual employees they are not needed and to not pay them during the run up to and the notice period itself?

 

We all have a lot of concerns and questions and so are pursuing the different avenues open to us to get legal advice and try and make completely sure the company cannot find a way to not pay us redundancy or to 'force' us to leave by placing us on unpaid leave.

 

Thank you very much for any advice you can give!

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG. I hope we can help you.

 

Have you contacted ACAS or looked at their website? I understand that their advice can vary depending on who you speak to, but you may get some pointers that you can check out. Some people here understand redundancy problems and hopefully they'll be along to comment as soon as they can.

 

My best, HB

[Robert86]

Hi HoneyBee13,

I've read ACAS' website regarding redundancies and their advisory booklet, and intend on calling them tomorrow.

[Atlas01]

I'd suggest you club together as a group and pay an employment solicitor for some advice and possibly representation, it will be better than the generic advise you'll get from acas, you may even get it free if you have many numbers of possible claimants

 

They advised they were contemplating redundancy, they can change their mind and may well argue not it's not any more just a relocation and change of contract which indirectly may trigger redundancies due to people not being able to work at the new site (distance?) or the new terms.

 

If over 100 a HR1 must have been served to be legit to the secretary of state, if they have not done this there is a breach and they would be in the merde if any dismissal notices were issued. It sounds like someone has done a 10 min skim of the ICE regs and made a tad of a pigs ear of it.

 

For this one you need proper legal advise

Edited March 24, 2011 by Atlas01
tidy up

[Robert86]

Hi All,

I'll be sitting in the queue for CAB on Monday and go from there!

 

In the meantime; one the alternative sites is a long way away (over 3 hours commute!), one is outside the UK (Southern Ireland), and the other is still only a "possible future site", of which the management claims they are still unsure of whether or not it will exist, and if it does what exactly will be done there.

 

Also, one of the people who have put their name down for the list of representatives is a member of the site management who has already stated he will be moving to another site to continue working there; can he legally be a representative given the circumstances?