Understanding and Preparing for Redundancies

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Redundancy Process

• Redundancies occur when an employer believes a role is no longer needed
• Your employer should only ever be considering redundancies if:
• A department, office or the entire company is closing or relocating, loss of profits or the company has been sold/merged.
• The type or number of roles required to complete the company’s work has changed.
• If you’re dismissed for another reason, such as performance or conduct, that’s not a redundancy, even if your employer claims it is.
• Redundancies will almost always favour the employer and not the worker. They can often be upsetting and stressful.
• Being a union member means that you have support and representation.
• The ‘legal’ options you and the union have are limited by employment law.

Individual Consultation Meetings

• If you're affected by redundancies, by law your employer must consult you.
• This applies even if you’re not at risk of redundancy. If colleagues you work with are at risk of redundancy then you must also be consulted.
• You must be met at least once, but it may be more than once.
• Your employer should explain why you or your colleagues are at risk of redundancy, and answer any questions you have.
• Your employer must not tell you that you will be made redundant in this first meeting, nor should they have made any decision.
• Your employer might tell you about other available positions at the company that you could consider.

Collective Consultation

• If your employer plans or expects there to be 20 or more redundancies at the same establishment within 90 days, they must also hold a collective consultation.
• Employee representatives, if a trade union is not recognised.
• A union rep, if the trade union is officially recognised or employer agrees.
• Individual consultation meetings still need to take place.
• They must write to you and explain:
• why they need to make redundancies, which jobs are at risk and the number of roles affected
• how they plan to select employees for redundancy and how they plan to carry out redundancies
• how they’ll calculate redundancy pay
• details of any agency workers they’re using

How to Use Your Consultation Meeting

• In your first consultation meeting, it may be useful to ask about:
• How workers will be selected for redundancy
• Whether you can have time off to look for a new job or training
• Whether there’s another, similar role you could be moved into (if you already know of one, let them know)
• Any issues you have with the process
• You can propose an alternative plan if you think it will avoid redundancies, and may even be invited to do so by your employer. However, this is very rarely taken on board by an employer, and usually won’t be a good use of your time and energy.
• If you want to propose an alternative to redundancies, write/present it as a quick summary. If your employer is genuinely open to ideas, they can always request more information and detail from you.

Discrimination

• You cannot be selected for redundancy for any of the following reasons:
• Age, sex or gender
• Race or religion/belief
• Sexual orientation or marital status
• Having a disability (including mental health issues)
• Pregnancy or being on maternity/paternity leave, or any family-related leave
• Being an employee or trade union representative, or a trade union member
• Being on a part or fixed-term contract
• Raising concerns about working time regulations or not being paid the minimum wage, or whistle-blowing

Redundancy Notice and Pay

• If you’re selected for redundancy, your employer must:
• Tell you how long your notice period is, if it’s not defined in your contract.
• Keep paying you in full until the end of your notice period, even if they ask you not to work (i.e. garden leave).
• Your notice period starts from the day after you’ve been notified of it.
• If you’re given notice by letter or email, your notice period starts from the day after you’ve read the letter/email (not the date it was written or sent!).
• Your contract may specify something different to this, so make sure to read it!
• If your contract doesn’t specify a notice period, the minimum statutory notice period is 1 week for every full year you’ve worked, up to a maximum of 12 weeks.

Redundancy Notice and Pay

• In addition to your normal salary, you will receive - at minimum - statutory redundancy pay based on your age and length of employment.
• You’re only eligible for statutory redundancy pay if you’ve been employed for two years. Less than this and it’s up to your employer.
• If you’ve turned down a suitable alternative job offered by your employer during the redundancy process, you may not be eligible for redundancy pay.
• Your employer must tell you in writing how they’ve worked out your redundancy pay.
• Some employers may offer enhanced redundancy payments to everyone, or certain individuals, as a means of ‘softening the blow’. Always consider why this might be.

Statutory Redundancy Pay

• Once you’ve been employed for two years, you will be entitled to a statutory redundancy payment that’s equivalent to:
• Half a week’s pay for each full year worked when you were aged between 17-21.
• One week’s pay for each full year worked when you were aged 22-40.
• 1.5 weeks’ pay for each full year worked since you were aged 41+.
• For example, if you worked for 3 years and 11 months, and turned 23 at the start of your final year of employment, you would (very unfairly) receive the equivalent of just two weeks’ pay:
• 2 full years of employment between the ages of 20-22 = 2x 0.5 weeks
• 1 full year of employment between the ages of 22-23 = 1 week
• 11 months of employment at age 23 = not included; less than a full year

Note: weekly pay is calculated as the average weekly pay over the 12 weeks before your redundancy notice.

What you and our union can do

• Have a rep accompany you in meetings.
• Where criteria are met, take legal action.
• Organise a campaign against redundancies.
• Employers often like to handle redundancies fast, so it’s important to get organised quickly
• Coming together with other workers and publicising the damage the redundancies are having on you all can make your employer rethink the decision or could help improve the terms of the redundancy
• We have saved workers’ jobs and gotten better redundancy terms in the past by working together

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