temporary contracts and redundancy

notwithit??

I work in customer services and we have been put "at risk" and have recently started a 90 day consultation. there are two different department, 1 where all the staff are permanent and have many years service. the 2nd is all temporary staff on fixed term contracts (that start on one date and finish on another)
neither sets of staff work in the others area, they are completely seperate jobs.
we have been told they will almalgamate the 2 departments and all the staff can reapply.

my question is, if the temporary staff have a finish date that is before the end of the 90 days, can they just finish our contracts or are we entitled to be included in the pool of staff to be redeployed?
some have been there for 2 seasons and some of us only started last summer, in each case we have had our origional contracts extended beyond the 6 months we were intentionally employed for and it states in our contracts that the company reserve the right to terminate contracts based on operational requirements.

do we have any rights?
any advice please

Debt_Free_Chick

If the reason for non-renewal of the contract is redundancy, then those who have contracts expiring should be treated in the same way as everyone else. So they should be consulted and selected according to the same criteria applied to permanent workers.

Those who have had contracts renewed so that when added together they have two continuous years employment will be entitled to statutory redundancy - and any other contractual payments that the employer makes to those on permanent contracts.

Whenever a fixed term contract is not renewed it's classed as a dismissal and if the dismissal is due to redundancy, then the redundancy process should be applied.


Fixed Term workers should not be singled out as the "first choice" for redundancy, unless there's a good reason for it e.g. there taken on to do a specific piece of work and that work has now been completed. From what you say, this is not the case here.

So - yes, you should all be in the pool for redeployment.

therealdessie

DFC is absolutely right, and the legislation covering this is quite interesting (and largely untested) - the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 - read up on it at BERR - it's very good reading!

CFC

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

If the reason for non-renewal of the contract is redundancy......


....Fixed Term workers should not be singled out as the "first choice" for redundancy, unless there's a good reason for it e.g. there taken on to do a specific piece of work and that work has now been completed. From what you say, this is not the case here.

So - yes, you should all be in the pool for redeployment.

Generally though the fixed term workers have been taken on to do actual fixed term work though. There is no automatic right to have a contract extended beyond its end date, therefore the reason for non renewal of the contracts which end withiin that 90 day period is insufficient work to need a further extension of contract for those employees, not redundancy. I would therefore be surprised to see them placed into the redeployment pool.

notwithit??

thanks for your replies.

i have read through the BERR thing and found this statement:

Fixed-term employees should not be selected for redundancy purely because they are on fixed-term contracts, unless this is objectively justified. However, where fixed-term employees have been brought in specifically to complete particular tasks or to cover for a peak in demand, it is likely that an employer could objectively justify selecting them for redundancy at the end of their contracts.

as we are employed to cover a peak in the business, does this mean they have justification??

Debt_Free_Chick

Possibly - as the document says "it is likely". No-one can be absolutely sure. The employer would need to risk it and then wait to see if any of the staff took them to Tribunal - then the Tribunal would rule on it.

If the employer were playing it safe, then they would not run the risk and simply treat everyone as a potential redundancy risk and treat them all the same.

notwithit??

They want to make redundancies and create this "new" job which combines both departments, some of the staff have a wealth of experience spanning over 25 years and we are brought in to help cover the peak times, on just the basic training for the job that we do. We dont know anything about the other job. It would also mean a big pay rise if we are fortunate to get one of these new jobs. I cant understand why they would give us a payrise and drop the others?? its just the same?? taking off 1 and giving to the other?


Also, if they ringfence the jobs for certain staff to apply, how do they select the criteria usually? i have heard on the grapevine that this may happen?