Redundacy Help

1931modela

Hope someone can offer some advice, I will try and keep things brief.
The company I work for decided to outsource a number of departments (total 39 people) back in March/April and we were subsequently transferred under TUPE on the 20th April we have had 2 group meetings with the new employers who stated that they were looking at solutions and they may outsource work to their India based offices.
On the 12th May we had a one to one meeting where they talked about displacement and that our jobs were at risk and received written confirmation of this afterwards.
How ever when I asked if this was the start of the consultancy period I was told NO, at no time did they discuss the reasons, any other options, redeployment in any of their other offices in UK.
Yesterday we were told in various group meetings that our jobs are definitely displaced (what a great word and use of the English language for Redundancy), the meeting was very short to the point of a short Power point presentation which we could hardly see and that was it, they just sat there silent, supposedly waiting for questions.
Today we are advised by a one line email that the consultation period started when we had the one to one. We have today sent a letter to them stating these points.
So to get to my question, does this sound right as according to the ACAS website there should have been discussions about alternatives, reasons etc. before the consultation period.
I am sorry this may appear very long winded, just wanted to try and give as much info, any help or advice would be very much appreciated

1931modela

I need a bit more advice please
Have been to CB and spoken to ACAS but still not sure what we should be doing and whether we have been treated correctly.
We have not been given (3 days before consultancy period is due to end)
1. A proper reason for redundancy
2. What selection criteira was used (There are 27 of us to be displaced in various depts)
3. No proper consultation ie they never discussed any alternative to displacement, such as pay cuts, reduced hours etc which a number of us would have considered.
4. Refusal to a Team meeting.
5. None of us were advised that at the first meeting when we were told that our jobs were at risk that we could take a rep with us and for that matter to the second meeting.
This is an huge Indian company with a known record for poor staff relations/handling of outsourcing, which is common knowledge when googled.
We plan to write a Grievence letter to them and await their comments, but as we have sent them one letter and met with them about it they have denied all points we raised, without a rep with us at the one to one meetings we have had, is it their word against ours and a tribunal would err on their side or should we have expected them to tell us more about the process.
Also as a final point at the meeting last week they were totally unaware of who or what the DWP were.
Please if anyone can offer any advice it really would be much appreciated, we don't expect to keep our jobs but why should they be allowed to treat people like this.

DCodd

Very complicated situation, I am assuming that displaced means outsourced to India???

You have redundancy, TUPE and an Indian based Company!!!

What type of work did you do? As certain work can not use TUPE.

Who told you it was TUPE?

Were these Departments part of a PLC company or a PLC Company in their own right? In other words did the Indian Company take a controlling stake in a PLC?

To be honest you need a specialist Lawyer who can collate all the relavant legislation and get an overview of your legal position!! It may even be that you have a claim against your original employer???

Sorry I can not be more help!! Good Luck!

1931modela

DCodd wrote: »

Very complicated situation, I am assuming that displaced means outsourced to India???

Yes that is correct when they say displaced to India they mean redundancy and our jobs will be done out there.

You have redundancy, TUPE and an Indian based Company!!!

Yep !!!!!!!!!!!

What type of work did you do? As certain work can not use TUPE.

The team I work for are Automotive Technical Editors, but it also involves some of our IT dept, Helpdesk, Development and DBA team.

Who told you it was TUPE?

Our previous employers

Were these Departments part of a PLC company or a PLC Company in their own right? In other words did the Indian Company take a controlling stake in a PLC?

No we worked for a Ltd Company who outsourced 37 of us.

To be honest you need a specialist Lawyer who can collate all the relavant legislation and get an overview of your legal position!! It may even be that you have a claim against your original employer???

Sorry I can not be more help!! Good Luck!

Thanks very much, it looks like we may have to seek legal advice, we were just trying to avoid legal costs.

DCodd

By "Outsourced" what do you actualy mean? Sold that part of the Company? Were you on fixed term contracts etc etc?

1931modela

DCodd wrote: »

By "Outsourced" what do you actualy mean? Sold that part of the Company? Were you on fixed term contracts etc etc?

Our understanding of Outsourcing is that our jobs are to be done in India, we presume because costs are much less, they have no knowledge of the work my team do for instance, so much so that 1 of our guys is having to go to India for a month to try and train them, basically we research and write repair times using manufactures systems, we are all long time fully trained technicians and have been doing this particular job for between 4 & 22 years.
Our contracts were normal work contracts, not fixed term.

DCodd

I think a real specialist is required here. If all 27 of you agreed to share the costs of a consultation to see if a lawyer could help then it wouldn't be too expensive?

I am sorry I can not help you more but I would worry about any advice I gave as this is outside of the experience I have.

For what it is worth, I think they have not treated you and your collegues very well at all, even if it turns out it is legal.

I truly wish you the best of luck and please if you do decide to get legal advice it would be very helpfull to know the outcome. It may help someone else in your position!

1931modela

Many, many thanks for your advice it really is much appreciated, we will look to getting some legal advice even if it turns out that they have done things legally, their ethics leave a lot to be desired.
As I said in a previous post their reputation for this preceeds them.
I will post any further news when I get it.
Once again thank you for taking the time to reply.

PaulLuke

I agree that you need to speak to a solicitor as this looks a somewhat tangled situation.

However, you do need to try and get all the facts/dates etc straight in your heads before seeing a solicitor as this will speed up the consultation and make it easier to work out what has happened (in a legal sense). I do suggest you get together with your colleagues and write out a list of dates/times places etc of everything that has happened.

As an aside you said you were told you have been Tupe'd. Have you been given evidence of this in terms of a new contract of employment between yourselves and the Indian Company. Also, were there any enhanced redundancy terms in the contract with your original company. My reason for wondering about this is it seems strange that you would be Tupe'd to a new employer who then becomes liable for any redundancy payment but then makes you redundant!

1931modela

Thank you for your reply, we have printed off all emails etc that we have received and put them in date order etc.
We have never received a new contract but having just re read the letter of joining, all we were asked to sign was a Confidentiality agreement, Conflict of Interest policy & Internal Code for regulation and prevention of insider trading.
However the letter does state that "Your current contractual terms and conditions of employment transfer across to ***** unless otherwise stated.
There were no enhanced redundancy payments with our old company, and notice periods have not changed either.

getmore4less

Sound to me like you were TUPE to a new company.

THis company is now going to make you redundant because the jobs are no longer to be done at your place of work but will be done in India.

If there are 27 of you then this needs to be done as a collective redundancy with proper consultation and they need to have appointed reps.

There is probably little chance of saving the jobs unless you can show this will not work and this will need support of the customer(probably your old employer) there is a chance that there is failure to follow the process so a claim is worth investigating.