Redundancy - unfair

murphy306

Hi all

Someone I know is being made redundant, well that was what they were told first. They have now been advised differently that their job is being merged with another job in the same department and that both parties have to apply for the one job. However as both jobs are being merged they both have skills in each part of the job but this person feels that they are at an unfair advantage as the person running against them is younger. There has been some bullying going on in the office this past few years which has gotten significantly worse this year leading to stress and anxiety leading to time off work sick. The person doing the bullying has instigated this change to the structure of the office as they want one person out. The company had been paying sick pay but then just suddenly decided to stop paying it for this one person. Employment has been constant for over 15 years.

Anyone any ideas?

zzzLazyDaisy

Is this person employed in Northern Ireland? (some of the laws in NI are different to England and Wales).

Edit - but just to say that if his current post has disappeared and the work merged with another persons post, to create one new post, that falls squarely within thre definition of redundancy, as the two original posts have ceased to exist under the new structure. The employer then has a duty to offer the opportunity to apply for any suitable posts as an alternative to dismissing the employee whose job is redundant (or in this case both employees). Clearly two employees can't both be successful as there is only one job available. This sort of process is common and lawful. Which may not be what you want to hear.