Wife made redundant and now the cleaner is doing her job

hottdang1

Hi all
My wife and a colleague of hers were made redundant week before last from an assembly job

The company said during consultation that although there will still be some assembly requirement, it is cheaper to import the bulk of the product from China

However, my wife has learnt from two different sources an existing factory/assembly worker and a part time cleaner have been doing my wife's and her colleague's job

It is unclear how long they have been doing this and obviously how long they will be doing it for
We do believe it had been going on for several days minimum

My wife and I understand and accept the factory/assembly worker will be called upon to do work - she left with the understanding that any assembly required would using the remaining staff (it is only a small place) but to draft in the cleaner - is this legal?

Nothing against cleaners - done that myself - but mentioning that although this person is on the payroll, she is in a completely unrelated role (although she has helped before when they have been busy - but not recently I am aware of)
Also she is to best of our knowledge doing this as additional hours to her existing job
So the opinion is they have drafted someone in specifically to carry out this duty and not reutilising from the existing pool of assembly and factory workers

In other words, it was never mentioned they would pay someone overtime to do the job (she would get flat rate unless she goes past her 37.5 hours

Any advice much appreciated

Obviously it would be difficult and possibly illegal to obtain hard details but it looks like they've laid two people off and now going out and paying someone additional to their normal hours to do the job


Thanks in advance

SailorSam

I got made redundant about 40yrs ago. there were only 4 of us in the accounts section of our office, One more senior than me and two young girls who were paid less. After i went one of the girls started doing my work. I took the company to Court and won, it was unfair dismissal. I could have had my job back if i'd wanted but accepted a cash pay-off.

hottdang1

Thanks SailorSam - I think we're going to go down the legal route on this

Regards

hottdang1

Hi again folks - any tips on finding a no win no fee employment law solicitor - if indeed that is the best way to go with this?

Many thanks

SailorSam

I don't think i had any sort of legal representative. The Court was very helpful. All it was three 'judges', so you had one in charge who must have had some sort of Court experience, the others were 'lay' people, basically one may have been from perhaps a Union background the other with a business background.
When they gave their decision in my favour they asked was i ok to negotiate what i thought was a fair figure, if not to come back and they'd say what they thought.
Before i started taking any action i went to a CAB type of place to ask their advice.

Valli

If your wife is in a union then consult them.

p00hsticks

SailorSam wrote: »

I got made redundant about 40yrs ago. there were only 4 of us in the accounts section of our office, One more senior than me and two young girls who were paid less. After i went one of the girls started doing my work. I took the company to Court and won, it was unfair dismissal. I could have had my job back if i'd wanted but accepted a cash pay-off.

Employment law has changed an awful lot over the last forty years, and not always for the better, so I don't think your experience from around 1976 is necessary a good indication to the OP

(In these PC days I don't think you'd get away with referring to fellow employees as 'young girls' for a start, even if they are in more junior positions than you !)

Guest101

p00hsticks wrote: »

Employment law has changed an awful lot over the last forty years, and not always for the better, so I don't think your experience from around 1976 is necessary a good indication to the OP

(In these PC days I don't think you'd get away with referring to fellow employees as 'young girls' for a start, even if they are in more junior positions than you !)

Well if the description was purely factual - female and significantly younger than the OP - a description of young girl would probably be ok.


But I suspect it was meant in a 'inexperienced and less paid' way.

lincroft1710

hottdang1 wrote: »

Also she is to best of our knowledge doing this as additional hours to her existing job
So the opinion is they have drafted someone in specifically to carry out this duty and not reutilising from the existing pool of assembly and factory workers

In other words, it was never mentioned they would pay someone overtime to do the job (she would get flat rate unless she goes past her 37.5 hours

Is it possible that this cleaner is just bringing her hours up to 37.5 and this is temporary to help fulfil an order?

anamenottaken

p00hsticks wrote: »

Employment law has changed an awful lot over the last forty years, and not always for the better, so I don't think your experience from around 1976 is necessary a good indication to the OP

(In these PC days I don't think you'd get away with referring to fellow employees as 'young girls' for a start, even if they are in more junior positions than you !)

I agree. Provided no additional person was taken on in SS's department, there would obviously previously have been more human resource than needed and the use of potentially less expensive labour was a sensible business decision.

hottdang1

Hi
The company wouldn't purposely give the cleaner more work to bring her hours up to 37.5
As much as I can reasonably ascertain, she is contracted to do 16 hours so there's no obligation on the company to do anything as such

However yes, there is prospect she is helping fulfil an order but there is every prospect they could well keep the cleaner doing this job indefinitely


- I'm a manager in my own profession and the things that go on in this particular place are frankly, like Little Britain does management so nothing would surprise me
That said, bad management obviously doesn't equate to breaking the law

Anamenottaken - sorry to ask but the cleaner is unlikely IMO to have it in her contract that she is also employed to do factory/assembly work -

She is on the payroll for a completely unrelated duty but she was not included in the redundancy consultation so is she not additional resource?

We know someone who was on that consultation has been doing the work also and we understand and accept that but we have a copy of the skills matrix listing all persons who were put at risk and the company and the cleaner is not on it
Furthermore, the company stated the role would be fulfilled either by importing from China or whatever requirement completed in house would be carried out by the remaining production employees
- definitely no mention of using the cleaner (or anyone else from outside the production pool)

I think of it like this also - if the cleaner didn't exist for example, the company would have gone out for a temp so is there any difference?

If anyone has any advice on solicitors around this - I'd be most grateful as that'll obviously be the deciding factor but I do appreciate people's thoughts here

Thanks