redundancy, disability & sickness

jpdiver

My husband has been working for a large energy company for 11 years, he's 61 and is registered disabled following a stroke six years ago, fortunately he has been able to continue his computer based work.
Two weeks ago he was given notice that his job role was at risk and he has a meeting to attend next week. He is certain they will make him redundant and the resulting stress is making him unfit for work and this meeting - he will not be able defend himself or his rights. His line manager has also started to bring performance management issues into this, presumably to ensure he leaves quietly. His last performance review was incorrect and I have advised him to take this up with HR but the stress (and embarassment of having a poor review for the first time ever) has stopped him.

if he is unfit for the meeting next week can they carry on without him attending?
Does it seem like they are using excessive pressure/measures to get him out of his job?
Is there anything we can do?

Thank you for reading this - any help / suggestions will be appreciated as its unlikely in the current climate he will get another job.

SarEl

Yes, they can carry on without him. Redundancy timetables do not stop because someone is unfit for work. They may agree to a short postponment if this is feasible - but we are talking about rearranging the meeting within days, not weeks or months. Otherwise, sorry, but I don't see excessive pressures or measures here. There will be a scoring mechanism of some sort and it is almost certain that this will involve performance to some degree or another. Since it is a large company they are almost certain to have some form of standardised scoring criteria of this sort, and they will not be up to the manager to determne the criteria, although the manager will almost certainly play some part in scoring individuals. And you are not going to like the next sentence, so please wait until the end of it! His last performance review was not incorrect - for whatever reason he chose to accept it and that makes it "correct". If he had felt that it was not afirly scored at the time he should have done as you advised and appealed the score, but it is too late to do so now. I am sorry, but that is the position in law (and to be fair, even if he had appealed it he may not have succeeded in getting it changed) - if it is within the scoring system used then his poor performance review can be used to reduce his score.

But that is a worst case scenario. The scoring will include other things, and you are both getting ahead of yourselves in assuming that at risk means he will be made redundant. I realise that this is very stressful for him, and he may feel better if he asks his employer for someone with him - a trades union rep or work colleague. But if he doesn't go to the meeting then he is allowing whatever will happen to happen without any challenge - he needs to know how people will be selected and what scores he gets against the set criteria or process adopted. He cannot challenge them if he isn't there!