Should I seek Legal Advice

tdi140

My wife took a job at a local college just over three years ago, in 2008. The job was as a full time staff member. However, shortly after joining she discovered that both her and her boss's jobs were dependent on ongoing funding from various external sponsors being available. She also discovered that current funding was available for around three years ie up to 2011. She was obviously not very happy about this as it had not been discussed at her interview but everyone reasured her that there had never been any problems finding ongoing funding.
Now, three years later, guess what! The funding has stopped (put down to the recession) and both my wife and her boss have been given notification that they will be made redundant at the end of July. She is furious to say the least as she may never have taken the job in the first place if she had known it was only funded for three years.
Can she do anything legally against the college? It just doesn't seem right that she was effectively on a fixed term contract. Is this some form of constructive dismissal? I'd like to know what to do.
(Her boss has also been hinting that he may be taken back as a 'freelance consultant' a few days a week as funding may be available from another source to pay for him to do this.)

jazzyman01

Check her contract. If the contract does not state that it is a short term role for a period of 3 years then she can claim redundancy. IF it does state that she is on a contract then it is too late to be complaining now that it was not what she expected as she has been effectively working on that contract for 3 years.

The interesting thing is that you state she is being made redundant. Even where there are only 1-2 jobs going, there still has to be consultation, has this taken place?

SarEl

Just to add - I am afraid that this is common and perfectly lawful. Many employers with fixed term funding offer "permanant contracts" - the problem is not with the fixed term funding per se but with the notional view of a "permanant contract". There is no such thing. Any contract can be terminated for a variety of reasons including redundancy, and a "permanant contract" has no meaning in law. Arguablly,most of the redundancies in the country are down to "the funding running out" because the employer is not longer willing or able to "fund" the continuation of that post. There is no reason for an employer to tell anyone how a post is paid for, and no legal action that could be taken for them not doing so. So all you have here is whether the redundancy is carried out fairly in law.