Lost hours at work, but no chance of redundancy, advise please!

Refund_Queen

Hi,
My husbands small company (around 10 employees) put everyone down to a 4 day week at work (this started late february), which means that they have lost 5 hours out of a 39 hour week (works 8-5 mon to thurs and 8-1 on friday, so no longer works on a friday). They were told yesterday that they might have to go down to a 3 day week which means a total of 13.5 hrs lost per week. When my husband knew the company was struggling, he looked into retaining as he has been in this job for 20 years. Job centre told him that if he left work then he would not be entitled to benefits for 6 months, but if he was made redundant he would be covered straight away.

He thinks this would be the best solution to retrain and have the benefits there to cover our bills (not sure if they will as job centre said they couldnt say what we would be entitled to until he was actually made redundant). he asked his boss yesterday if he could be made redundant and he said no, the company couldnt afford it, if they had to pay him redundancy money the benefits agency would look into their accounts to see if they actually had and that the company would fold.

So now my husband is stuck, we cant afford for him to loose the 13.5 hours as that is our sole income, (family of 5, 3 young children and I'm at home looking after the youngest) and no chance to be made redundant.

Can anyone advise if there is something that we could do please?!?
Thanks
x

getmore4less

What does his contract say? some have clauses to allow this sort of thing.

They need to find out what happens if the workers refuse to accept the reduced hours and what other alternatives the company has considered.

McKneff

Try getting a job on the other two days or Sat. Sun.
You look for a job over the 4 days when he will be at home.

But i agree with gm4l to look into that first.