Redundancy help. Can they do this?

Jarndyce

SarEl wrote: »

And indirect sex discrimination. It doesn't matter whether they would have done the same thing to a man (impossible to test since there isn't one!) - cutting part-time roles has a disproportionate impact on women because they are more likely to be part-time workers than men are, so indirect discrimination is in the frame.

Only if we knew that there actually were more women part-timers than men in the OP's workplace/company surely - which we don't.

SarEl

Jarndyce wrote: »

Only if we knew that there actually were more women part-timers than men in the OP's workplace/company surely - which we don't.

Nope - indirect discrimination works differentlt than direct discrimination. It operates on statistical likelihood not direct comparators. It is statistically a fact that more women work part-time than men, so any decision which is based on making a decision because someone is part-time is more likley to have an impact on women. So a decision which cannot be objectively justified to refuse to allow part-time work is indirect sex discrimination, and has already been pointed out, there seems to be at least some argument that one full time job could be done by two part-time people / job-share.

isplumm

SarEl wrote: »

Nope - indirect discrimination works differentlt than direct discrimination. It operates on statistical likelihood not direct comparators. It is statistically a fact that more women work part-time than men, so any decision which is based on making a decision because someone is part-time is more likley to have an impact on women. So a decision which cannot be objectively justified to refuse to allow part-time work is indirect sex discrimination, and has already been pointed out, there seems to be at least some argument that one full time job could be done by two part-time people / job-share.

Hi,

So are you suggesting that if 2 pt people are being made redundant - one female & one male - the female could due for sexual discrimination & the man couldn't??

Mark

SarEl

isplumm wrote: »

Hi,

So are you suggesting that if 2 pt people are being made redundant - one female & one male - the female could due for sexual discrimination & the man couldn't??

Mark

No I did not suggest that.

I said that if an employer cannot objectively justify why a job cannot be done on a part-time basis, then that is indirect sex (not sexual) discrimination. And I am not suggesting that. I am stating it as a fact. There is more than sufficient case law on this matter.

jack0212

Well, after a very informative £250 session with my solicitor, it turns out that I have a case for unfair dismissal, indirect sexual discrimination and less favourable treatment of a part time worker. It was a lot of money but for me well worth it as we went through everything bit by bit. At least now I can stop worrying whether I have a case or not!

Thanks Jarndyce. You are right about the unfair selection. Because I am not able to work FT they automatically dropped the current FT worker from any of the redundancy consultations etc and decided that it was only me that would be effected and only me to go through the consultation process. My solicitor agreed with you that this was classed as unfair dismissal and less favourable treatment of a PT worker.

I now have to file a grievance and then appeal against redundancy and then go on to the legal process from there. It's not all about the money (though it certainly does help) and I probably won't get very much, but the fact that I am really tired of big companies thinking that they can just walk all over their staff. I have worked for ten years, most days without lunch breaks and then worked days off etc.. in order to help the company and then I get rewarded with this! I have just been told today that if I take the demotion my pay will halve whilst other FT people are getting promises of wage increases. This company is SO wrong :-(

SarEl

jack0212 wrote: »

Well, after a very informative £250 session with my solicitor, it turns out that I have a case for unfair dismissal, indirect sexual discrimination Hmm - I feel an "i told you so" coming on! and less favourable treatment of a part time worker.

Actually, I didn't like to disagree with Jarndyce earlier on, but it is simple economics - the best lawyers don't need to do free sessions and £250 is dirt cheap!

Yes I know it is a lot of money to you, but lawyers are like anything else - the best comes with a price tag. And it takes the best to spot "indirects" - they are often, in my experience, overlooked by solicitors because they don't have the case law expertise to spot them. I would agree that it was money well spent.

Jarndyce

SarEl wrote: »

Actually, I didn't like to disagree with Jarndyce earlier on, but it is simple economics - the best lawyers don't need to do free sessions and £250 is dirt cheap!

Yes I know it is a lot of money to you, but lawyers are like anything else - the best comes with a price tag. And it takes the best to spot "indirects" - they are often, in my experience, overlooked by solicitors because they don't have the case law expertise to spot them. I would agree that it was money well spent.

Glad to be disagreed with on this occasion. Good luck to the OP.:)