Fixed Term Contracts

TikkaCleo

Thank you for the help received over at my other question about sickness criteria. as you can see, there is a lot going on in our organisation.


I have another question, I promise I will go back to lurking after this!!


At the moment, in our consultation paperwork, the employer is saying they have tried to prevent redundancies by 1) a freeze on recruitment and 2) the use of fixed term contracts.


It is my understanding that fixed term and temporary contracts are used to protect your workforce. In our case, when the election pools for that job are drawn up, a FTC or TC does not go into the selection pool.


Afterwards, unsuccessful staff go on redeployment for 12 weeks. A Fixed Term employee goes on there for their notice period (usually 4 weeks)


My question is this - surely this is contrary to the statement in the consultation paperwork?


We have a person who was on FTC for 12 months. At 11 months duration, she was put on the redeployment register. At that time, that week, there was no one suitable for a particular vacancy so she was offered it and went straight into it, no interview (as agreed when on redeployment) The thing is, 2 days later a pool of 9 permanent employees went on the register and could have taken that job.


My argument is that FTC staff should not go on redeployment. The employer is saying that the law says that FTC cannot be treated any less favourably that permanent staff.


Surely this means there is NO point at all to having Fixed Term Contracts then? Or am I really as dim as I sound? LOL


Someone please help me understand!!

getmore4less

I don't see how fixed term prevent redundancies.

Non renewal of a fixed term is a redundancy.

For anyone on notice of redundancy(different to at risk), if there is a suitable alternative everyone available should be considered if only one they get the job, so not get it the employer would have to justify why they are not suitable.

CKhalvashi

getmore4less wrote: »

I don't see how fixed term prevent redundancies.

It doesn't.

We use FT contracts for some things, as I can only guarantee work for a certain amount of time in many cases. As mentioned, non-renewal is redundancy.

For anyone on notice of redundancy(different to at risk), if there is a suitable alternative everyone available should be considered if only one they get the job, so not get it the employer would have to justify why they are not suitable.

Correct.

I've never gone down the redundancy route, but I know it needs to be thoroughly justified.

CK