Redundancy that may be unfair dismissal

Cheeze439

I'll try not to waffle on too much as there's a bit of background to cover.

My wife has post natal depression that is being treated, it came to light about 6 months ago as she returned to work. About 3 months ago it got pretty bad and the doctor signed her off work for a week. She returned to work, but a week or so later ended up off again, under doctors orders. Upon returning to work her manager sat her down and told her she should be reconsidering her employment there and how it must break her heart everyday to go work and leave her children behind. Naturally my wife was pretty upset by this and this led her manager to sending her off again as she felt she was in no fit state to work. Her doctor was shocked to say the least and signed her off again. At this point she was also due a week off on holiday but the manager refused to honor that holiday and forced it as unpaid sick time... something we later discovered is not allowed.

When she returned to work she walked straight into an unannounced meeting with her manager and an HR rep who grilled her and asked a lot of personal questions about why she is depressed, what sets it off, what medication she takes, how it makes her feel etc. They were very unsympathetic towards her and offered her no help at all. She got quite distressed so they sent her home for the day.

So, I rang her HR department myself who were pretty concerned at what had happened and agreed that she should never of had her holiday pay cancelled. I told them that my wife felt she was being pushed out and if that happened then we felt there was a strong case for constructive dismissal as the manager had tried to get her to quit. I explained how she has worked for them for 8 years without incident and was a very good employee. They offered to allow her to stay off for a week fully paid whilst they arranged a mediation meeting with my wife and the manager.

In the meantime her colleagues informed her that the manager had received quite a telling off and was very worried about the upcoming meeting.

So at the meeting she received an apology from the manager, had her sickness record wiped for the year and was offered a reduced workload if she wanted to ease her back into her job, which she took. That gave her an extra day off for 8 weeks.

Fast forward 8 weeks and no incident. My wife settled back in and started to enjoy work again. However they announced a consultation period and that several people would be being made redundant.

They said it was because they wanted to restructure the rotas and needed all staff to be completely flexible everyday week in week out. My wife works a 4 day fixed rota with a fifth day that alternates, this was because of a flexible working request because of our children that had been in place the last 5 years. So naturally she was concerned.

So last week she was pulled into a meeting and was told that unfortunately because she cannot be flexible she was to be made redundant. Her notice period of 8 weeks to start at the beginning of October followed by 8 weeks redundancy pay. She was naturally quite upset.

Now our concern is that it has transpired that she is the only person being made redundant. We've done some research online and several government and union sites claim that redundancy can be questionable if you are the only person being made redundant.

Also her job/role isn't redundant, they will just have different people working different shift patterns to cover it, the actual shifts would be the same hours, just not 1 person doing those 5, if that makes sense.

Furthermore there's something on the government website about redundancy not being allowed on the grounds of changes to working patterns.

Also, she has now seen the scoring sheet that was used to select the redundancy and it's incomplete, most the questions are not filled in and they haven't even bothered to date it. She naturally took a copy.

So are we being paranoid to think that this could be a stitch up? We are contacting ACAS this week and possibly an Employment Law specialist as we need to find out what exactly is meant by the term 'Working pattern'. This would come under the unfair selection part if we are correct.

Sorry for the long post but I feel the back story of the last few months may be playing a silent part here... or I am just overly suspicious.

You thoughts and especially any experts in this field would be most appreciated.

bloolagoon

Are they allowing other workers doing the same grade flexibility?

happenstance

If HR or management were ever to ask me about medical conditions I would kindly tell them to FO. Your employer is not a medical professional so they can ask but I would always refuse any information and offer to get professional advice / recommendations if needed.

Cheeze439

They want all employees working to a new template where their shifts change week in week out, no pattern at all. My wife can't do this as we have 3 children and our childcare and my work shifts are set around this. She's not completely inflexible, there would just be 2 mornings that she has to be off. At the moment most of her shifts are evenings.

The fact of the matter is that from my research so far it appears that flexibility and working pattern cannot be used as redundancy selection criteria. Also as a working mother there seems to be other things to consider such as discrimination. We really need to see ACAS I think, there's a lot implied online but it's never as simple or as black and white as it seems. I'm certain she's been targeted because what could be construed as whistle blowing on her manager RE: grounds for constructive dismissal earlier this year. This also raises another point about redundancy candidates being selected for whistle blowing. It's an absolute minefield but I feel we have several avenues to explore in respect to how she was selected.

She's currently is up in the air because after this treatment she isn't so sure she'd want to remain there, but she doesn't want them to get away with treating her like this either. I'm confident that she'll find employment before the redundancy date and the redundancy payout will be like a bonus, but should she put up with this?

The_Old_Bag

Don't take this the wrong way, but if an employer wants to get rid of you they can. And whatever the real reason, if they take the time and the effort, they can make it all legal.
Had a friend who was made redundant - the only person in her department. She just happened to be part-time and have a disabled child.
Her work still existed, but they gave her work to lower paid staff.
Interestingly ever single male in her department got promoted, yet the "reason" given for the re-shuffle was to save money.

IMO your wifes manager was probably given a rollocking from HR for not going about things the right way..... NOT because the manager was trying to get rid of your wife.
Would appear that after the 8 weeks period or whatever, HR then showed the manager how to get rid of your wife the proper way.

I wouldn't put it past her employer getting rid of your wife on the grounds of her inflexibility, and then once she has gone, going back to the old working patterns.

Bigger the business, bigger the HR dept, more chance they have the money and the means to get rid of whoever they want, when they want, and trump up whatever excuse they want.....

Having said all that, if she fights to stay, and succeeds this time...... will she not be walking on egg-shells from then on?
Also, the threat will still be hanging over her head....

I would seriously consider getting the best severance/redundancy package she can and go quietly. Fighting her corner will be extremely stressful, much more so than anything she has experienced so far.
At the end of the day, her health is the most important thing.

I assume she is not in a union, as you have made no mention of it..... no great loss anyway, they are pretty useless these days.

Good luck anyway, wouldn't wish it on anyone tbh