Redundancy terms, times and payment not clear.

PaulJM

Hello,
Hopefully someone here will be able to help!

My wife has been told by her company that they're closing the shop she works in. She's worked for Somerfield for 15 years, in various positions and locations, and Iceland, who've bought the particular shop she works in, have decided that they will close the shop and reopen in a few months, they are TUPEing the contracts, but don't want to keep the terms and conditions from Somerfield long term - fair enough, it's their business.

They've been given the news by area management and HR. They've been given the date of closure of the shop too - end of Feb. They are not going to be getting their letters of redundancy for two weeks, and have been told their notice period will be 1 month from end of Jan.

So - there is no indication on the company website of what they're owed, either notice wise or money wise, and her contract of employment doesn't state either. Anyone any ideas whether this has to be provided immediately? I'm aware of the standard terms from the government website.

Secondly, I'm in employment, and I'd like further practical advice.
My wage covers all important bills, mortgage, utilities, etc, but food shopping and whatever else comes from my wifes wage. I'm confident she will get another job, but this job has always been useful as it allows her to work very early morning, and get back to pick my 6 year old daughter up from school. We're concerned that to make to same money, she'll have to go full time (she does pretty close to that now - 33 hrs) which will incur childcare costs - and, if I want to feel sorry for myself, isn't the way we wanted to bring our kids up - we like having one of us at home, but I guess that's life.
How do you work out what is best - when do government benefits kick in, how do you work out complexities such as whether it's worth doing those extra hours, when a benefit might cover it...etc. Or even if it's worth working. I've never claimed a benefit - except a bit of child tax credit.
She's also in her third year of a Maths degree - are you able to claim on this kind of thing?

getmore4less

Start with 12 weeks notice and 15 years redundancy if the employment was continuous.

How many people are involved?

They may need longer consultancy up to 90 days and you could look at a protection order allthough if it is clear they are shutting down they may be able to get round this.

Lady007

Have they carried out both collective and individual consultation?. If not I assume they are planning on doing so before the 1st person is made Redundant otherwise the process would be deemed as unfair by a Tribunal. As they re planning on wrapping things up within a month I presue less than 10 people are involved?

They are very crafty in closing down the shop and reopening some time later. This is normally done to avoid a TUPE situation particularly if the terms and conditions of the employees who could be TUPE'd over are more favourable than their own.

PaulJM

Thanks for the posts here - always useful!

Frankly, they haven't been told when they'll be out of the door yet. They've been advised of the situation by area management and HR, but have been told they won't get the official letter for two weeks - which is a pain in the neck - makes it a bit uncertain.
They're looking at closure of the shop at the end of Feb - but I guess doesn't mean they'll get rid of them at the time. I'm thinking perhaps they will though.
I can see on the govnmt website that the rules are 30 days notice, if less than 100 people - it'll affect everyone in the shop - that's about 35.
An USDAW rep came in the other day, trailled by HR. HR took the guys that didn't pay for the union membership into a room (don't you love the political irony there ) and USDAW took the others into another. It seems the guys who saw HR learnt more about the situation, with a load of spurious rubbish coming from USDAW. Anyway...that's an aside.

Not sure what the rules are if they haven't had a letter about the situation yet? Surely that pushes the period of notice to 30 after that??

And yeah, you're right - it's exactly to avoid a long term TUPE situation. Iceland don't want to carry to more favourable Somerfield terms over for any more time than necessary. Unfortuately this is one of the downsides of big companies (athough it has its positives) - there's no personal negotiation on T&C and packages - you get what everyone else gets in that job profile.