Redundancy or claim

Pacso

For the 2nd time in just over a year I am off sick with work related stress. I work for a local authority. I am 50 years old and have 29 years service. I have been 'advised' to apply for redundancy or face getting 12 weeks notice under our absence management policy. I have been told that I would get about 40 weeks pay - thats about £24.5k. My union believe that I have a strong case to claim against my employer. As I understand it, if I did accept the settlement I would have to sign a COT3; that would prevent me taking out any legal action against the council. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

ceridwen

How many weeks sick leave did you have the first time? How many have you had, to date, this time?

Have you been told categorically in so many words that you will be dismissed without compensation if you dont apply for dismissal WITH compensation (ie the so-called "redundancy")? I presume they are calling this "redundancy" because they wouldnt replace the person in your position when they leave anyway...(ie they're "naturally wasting" the staff numbers down).

SarEl

Pacso wrote: »

For the 2nd time in just over a year I am off sick with work related stress. I work for a local authority. I am 50 years old and have 29 years service. I have been 'advised' to apply for redundancy or face getting 12 weeks notice under our absence management policy. I have been told that I would get about 40 weeks pay - thats about £24.5k. My union believe that I have a strong case to claim against my employer. As I understand it, if I did accept the settlement I would have to sign a COT3; that would prevent me taking out any legal action against the council. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

You wouldn't sign a COT3 - unless it went to a tribunal claim. But honestly - how on earth can anyone here tell you? We have no idea what is going on or even what you think you have a claim for! I would only comment that any claim under "stress realted illness" is never a strong claim, so if that is what you are saying I would be asking the union some very hard questions about why they think that. If the possible claim is for something else, well, whether you have a strong case or not depends on the case. doesn't it? But unless you have union legal advice to say this and that they will provide legal representation for a claim, I think I'd want a bit more than a guess from a rep. And there is utterly no guarantee that you will be signing a COT3 or anything else - the employer may decline to settle!

But one thing is clear - absence management policies are enforceable and local authorities are using them. The cause of your absence isn't relevant - just your absence. So if you have reached the threshold for dismissal under the policy, they will dismiss.

Pacso

The first time I was off was in August last year for 4 months with depression and stress. The I was off in February for 2 weeks following some surgery, now I have been off for 3 weeks with stress. Prior to this I had very few abdences. The causes off my stress were work related, no training, carrying out some duties of staff who took redundancy (not in my jd). All this was at the detrement of my post which was neglected. Most of my duties have now been absorbed by other members of staff or are now being axed owing to a restructure within my dept. As a result of my first absence it was agreed that I would undergo more training and would be released from tasks that are not in my JD. This did not happen. The union maintain that the Council have failed in a duty of care as they have allowed the situation to re-occur.

SarEl

Pacso wrote: »

The first time I was off was in August last year for 4 months with depression and stress. The I was off in February for 2 weeks following some surgery, now I have been off for 3 weeks with stress. Prior to this I had very few abdences. The causes off my stress were work related, no training, carrying out some duties of staff who took redundancy (not in my jd). All this was at the detrement of my post which was neglected. Most of my duties have now been absorbed by other members of staff or are now being axed owing to a restructure within my dept. As a result of my first absence it was agreed that I would undergo more training and would be released from tasks that are not in my JD. This did not happen. The union maintain that the Council have failed in a duty of care as they have allowed the situation to re-occur.

Reasons don't matter - sorry. You are under sickness absence procedures and that means that they can dismiss if you pass the sickness theshold no matter what the reason for it is. Claiming personal imjury for stress is actually quite hard. Ask your union to put their money where their mouth is - are they going to legally support a claim if you are dismissed? If they can't give you an affirmative answer - well you know where you stand.

getmore4less

I think you need to look at this as 2 seperate issues.

Ok there is work related stess in your job, this has not been handled as expected and you might have some sort of claim that would be to insigate the nesessary changes to make the roll suitable again, but it looks like you would need to deal with this in the context of defending a absence dismissal case.

So if you won this the council start a program of improvment or if you lose they pay you the 12 weeks.

You migh have some sort of position untenable and some payout, what are these likely to be? I have no idea.

Either way this is going to take time along with more stress and the follwing will overtake the situation anyway.

Independant of the above there are going to be redundancies and the possition you used to do and many others are no longer going to exist.

There is a defined payout for people that need to be made redundant based on service etc. Also there is likely to be a resonable consultancy period which indirectly gives you more money and time.

Either way you are most likely to be out of a job, and even if you can retain a posstion it will not be the old job and you don't seem to be able to cope with the likely alterantives anyway.

Some times it is best to step back and ask what you want and make that hapen.

Now obviously very limted information but lets face it, it is most likely there is no job for you any more anyway, you have not coped well with change so are under stress and more change is coming so probably best that you leave and move on.

Do you agree?

If you do then it comes down to whats the best exit plan for you

I would say it is a trade off between stress and the payoff

You have on the table a low stress 29 year service exit plan, as well as the redundancy there should be 12 weeks notice and the consultation period of pay.

The alterative is a claim which if you loose is 12 weeks and no redundancy, if you win, possibly redundancy anyway(but with stress) or a unknown as yet pay off which may or ma not be the same as the redundancy.


Find out what the pay out is remember the first £30k is tax free to that is like an extra weeks pay for every 2weeks.
(what is the redundancy calculation 2weeks per year capped at 20? or something else find the council policy and know what you are entitled to)

if 40 weeks then thats more like 60weeks in the pocket + the 12 weeks notice plus still getting paid for the consultation period and any outstanding holiday.

I would think you will be looking at 80+weeks pay from now so over a year and a half, you can also claim JSA for 6 month while you look for another job.

Pacso

I agree with you getmore4less. Whatever I do I'm leaving the job, I've had enough! I'm also trying to see if they will agree to release my pension at 55, but that's not looking good.