Help! Urgent.

FM1903

I need fairly urgent answers with this one as the days are ticking away until my appeal date is passed.

A week past Thursday (30 September) I recieved a phonecall from my boss asking me to attend the office first thing the following day. I did so and was told that my position was under review and a decision would be made over the weekend to decide if my position could be saved or perhaps another position given to me within the company. I was told to return on Monday 4 October to hear the outcome of the weekend meeting.

I returned on Monday was told that my position could not be saved as the company was not doing well and that i was redundant there and then. I was told that my services were no longer needed and that i was to return home and i would be paid for the week. This meeting lasted around 5 minutes and i recieved no written confirmation or asked to sign anything to confirm what happened in the meeting. There were no minutes taken of the meeting at all.

My question however is, do i have a case for unfair dismissal or something similar? From what i have read, I think i should be been invited to the consultation meeting on the Friday by written letter explaining what it was about and i should have been consulted as soon as the company had any idea there would was the possibly of redundancies. Telling me on Friday that my job was under threat and that a decision would be made on Monday is surely bad practice if not illegal, leaving me the weekend to look for a new job.

Another thing that crossed my mind was age discrimination. There was 2 of us that us whole situation happened to. I am 20 years old and just qualified from my apprenticeship and the other guy is an assistant who is 18. The rest of the team is 25 and upwards. Perhaps clutching at straws but who knows?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

zzzLazyDaisy

More information needed.

First, what date did you start working for this company?

Second, did you have a written contract of employment, and if so, what notice period is stated in the contract?

SarEl

FM1903 wrote: »

I need fairly urgent answers with this one as the days are ticking away until my appeal date is passed.

A week past Thursday (30 September)

My question however is, do i have a case for unfair dismissal or something similar? From what i have read, I think i should be been invited to the consultation meeting on the Friday by written letter explaining what it was about and i should have been consulted as soon as the company had any idea there would was the possibly of redundancies. Telling me on Friday that my job was under threat and that a decision would be made on Monday is surely bad practice if not illegal, leaving me the weekend to look for a new job.
Not necessarily. If there was only one or a small number of redundancies then the requirement to consult is very limited and it could easily be argued that this met the criteria - especially if this is a smallish employer.

Another thing that crossed my mind was age discrimination. There was 2 of us that us whole situation happened to. I am 20 years old and just qualified from my apprenticeship and the other guy is an assistant who is 18. The rest of the team is 25 and upwards. Perhaps clutching at straws but who knows?
Yes, lots of straw clutching there. The fact that you are older than one person and younger than the rest isn't really age discrom,ination - it's just life! You would need much, much more to prove discrimination
.

As the previous poster has said, we really don't have enough details here - but we need to know also whether there is anyone else that does the same job as you, and can you please explain when you "just finished" your apprenticeship - because there is often no absolute requirement to keep an apprentice on after they finish their training if there is no job for them.

FM1903

My notice period in my contract is one week but i was told i was out of a job then told i would be paid for the week. I started in April 09 and finished October 10 so no redundancy payment either.

Also, my apprenticeship finished in June although i am still waiting for the certification to come through although i had passed everything and finished college. Reading over my contract, i was taken on as an apprentice and it states that the contract lasts for the duration of my apprenticeship. Perhaps i should have been given a new contract in June when this ended?

Also, anyone shed any light on how i was invited to this consutation? Should it have been by written letter?

Thanks for advice guys.

zzzLazyDaisy

Okay, so you meet the criteria for protection from unfair dismissal, but not for a redundancy payment.

The employer may pay you one week's pay in lieu of notice, instead of asking you to work your notice.

The question of whether your dismissal was unfair depends on a number of issues. On the question of procedure, yes they may have been a bit quick off the mark, but if this is a genuine redundancy situation and the only thing they got wrong was the time-table, then you would only be entitled to be compensated for the additional days that you would have continued to work before being informed of the decision. Depending on the circumstances this might be a day or two, or a week or two, but it isn't going to be mega bucks.

If you think the decision to make you redundant was unfair for other reasons, you need to give us more information about the job you did, how many others did the same job as you (you say there were a few others in the team, but were they all employed in the same role as you?) how the company came to pick you instead of one of them and whether the job you were doing still exists. Depending on your answers we may need further information, but that's enough to start with.