Employing freelancer when making permanent staff redundant

trigirl1979

Hi, can anyone tell me if the following is legal.

My department is facing cuts. They will be making several people redundant, we are in consultation right now.

Today I found out they intend to pay a freelander to contract in until the end of the summer to do exactly the same job as people who are under threat - is this legal?

The freelancer will cost more than keeping on a permanent member of staff!

mandragora_2

Presumably it will be in order as the freelancer will have an end point in his/her contract, unlike permanent employees. I would think you could argue it was a better use of resources as it will give the employer more flexibility. I'm not a legal expert, but that's how I would see it, anyway.

getmore4less

As part of consultation you need to argue the case to keep someone on for the proposed period, a redundancy date can be set in the future it can be longer than the normal notices

soupdragon10

Hi, I've been the person kept on - original redundancy date was 31st October but was kept on for an extra 6 months for operational reasons. Does seem a bit daft if they are making redundancies to then pay an outsider for just 6 months - will take them a month to get into the swing of the company.

Don't see why they can't give someone a 'deferred' redundancy date as they did with me.

6 months is up this Thursday so will be joining the unemployment queue (hopefully not for too long).

grimsalve

I guess from an employers point of view the freelancer will simplify things because there won't be any personal issues or grudges, there's no HR complications, the cost of the contract will come out of the payroll budget, etc. I've seen this sort of thing done before

Chartered_Eng

trigirl1979 wrote: »

Hi, can anyone tell me if the following is legal.

Today I found out they intend to pay a freelander to contract in until the end of the summer to do exactly the same job as people who are under threat - is this legal?

Replacing anyone who is being made redundant is illegal. You are being made redundant because your work is no longer required. If they hire anyone to take over your work you are not redundant and neither is your position. This is becomes wrongful dismissal. I have seen this done when a dept manager was made redundant and as soon as he left someone else took over his job and title. He sued and won his case.

Get to the Citizens Advice bureau and they can advise and refer you to a solicitor who will do the first consultation for free or a fixed fee. Or if you have legal insurance through your house (buildings) or contents insurance make a claim and get help.

Once on redundancy notice the employer can defer the end date (with your agreement) to take on the work until completed. There is no need for a temp except it makes life nice and easy as their notice period will be much less than yours and no comeback.

F_T_Buyer

Chartered_Eng wrote: »

Replacing anyone who is being made redundant is illegal. You are being made redundant because your work is no longer required. If they hire anyone to take over your work you are not redundant and neither is your position. This is becomes wrongful dismissal. I have seen this done when a dept manager was made redundant and as soon as he left someone else took over his job and title. He sued and won his case.

Get to the Citizens Advice bureau and they can advise and refer you to a solicitor who will do the first consultation for free or a fixed fee. Or if you have legal insurance through your house (buildings) or contents insurance make a claim and get help.

Once on redundancy notice the employer can defer the end date (with your agreement) to take on the work until completed. There is no need for a temp except it makes life nice and easy as their notice period will be much less than yours and no comeback.

But isn't the replacement a freelancer, so they would be invoiced for the work. I'm not saying your wrong, but is this still the case when the replacement is not an employee?

Chartered_Eng

F_T_Buyer wrote: »

But isn't the replacement a freelancer, so they would be invoiced for the work. I'm not saying your wrong, but is this still the case when the replacement is not an employee?

It matters not who it is or their employment status. If your job is redundant that's it, the work for you no longer exits in that office. If someone else is brought in, freelance or not, then the work is there to be done and so your job is not redundant.

At my company there was some layoff's earlier this year and it was the freeancers that had to go first. If a staff employee was made redundant only to be replaced by a freelancer then the company would be in the wrong. They know this so the freelancers went first. Get some independent legal advice as it seems one job is still there to be done, albeit for a limited period. It may not be you that gets it but one of your colleagues could.

unholyangel

Chartered_Eng wrote: »

It matters not who it is or their employment status. If your job is redundant that's it, the work for you no longer exits in that office. If someone else is brought in, freelance or not, then the work is there to be done and so your job is not redundant.
QUOTE]

Not entirely true. It depends on a case by case basis. If you have been told that there is no longer a need for your job then you may have a claim IF that person is doing your job either exactly as you did it or if it is significantly similar (in which case your employer should have looked into this as an alternative means to redundancy).

In my case they're looking to pass my workload on to someone else who isnt a paid employee but isnt freelance either. But my job as it was, will no longer exist.

Chartered_Eng

unholyangel wrote: »

Not entirely true. It depends on a case by case basis. If you have been told that there is no longer a need for your job then you may have a claim IF that person is doing your job either exactly as you did it or if it is significantly similar (in which case your employer should have looked into this as an alternative means to redundancy). QUOTE]

The original poster wrote: "Today I found out they intend to pay a freelander to contract in until the end of the summer to do exactly the same job as people who are under threat - is this legal?"

So if the job continues "exactly the same" then the redundancy is illegal and as suggested before those in this position should get legal advice.

unholyangel

But the employer can defend this on several grounds depending on the situation and it is not always clear cut. But the way the law looks at it is that redundancy should be a last option. Is this freelancer going to have the exact same workload? Or will it be on a "as and when required" basis? Not having a steady workload would be a valid reason the employer may have chosen redundancy. Thats all i'm saying. We cant say its definitely illegal as we dont know the in's and out's.

And of course i agree they should seek professional legal advice - its what i did personally and (hopefully) it will pay off for me. He's certainly gotten better results than i had. 3 letters from myself to my employer telling them i wasnt accepting the change in contract and because of the situation, that i believed it was a redundancy situation went ignored. ONE letter from my solicitor and they were holding a committee meeting (which i've yet to find out the outcome of) to discuss it.

If they look around they may be lucky to get a free consultation - which at least will let them know if they have grounds to lodge a complaint or not.

And just to add that redundancy is if the requirement for the work you are doing has either ceased or is diminishing. Of course if it were diminishing, you would still expect them to keep on employee's to cope with the remaining work.