Redundancy with no consultation at all

richy4

My girlfriend is being made redundant at the end of this month.

She has known this might be a possibility as the company she works for announced at start of October they intend to close their UK operations across all their sites.

Yesterday her manager told her she was being made redundant by end of the month and to expect an official letter/notice in the post.

There has been NO official consultation period at all to keep her updated or anything like that since the company announced publicly it was closing operations. She had been hoping TUPE might be possible, however obviously not and there have been no discussions or anything with her at all.

Where does she stand on this? I'm hoping there won't be further complications with her statutory redundancy pay + pay in lieu of notice. She's had 9 years continuous employment and is 33 years old. Weekly earning around £500. From redundancy calculator this came out at figure around £4300

getmore4less

how many people?

asajj

Collective consultation rules only apply if they are making 20 or more employees redundant within any 90-day period at a single establishment.

richy4

I think it's less than 20.

They have told those being made redundant that they will have to claim their redundancy money from the government?! This is not right, I am under the impression the employer pays this unless they go bankrupt/into administration, neither of these have happened.

Sounds like they're trying to get out of paying, but aren't they legally required to?

sangie595

They are indeed. And it may be worse for you if this is their intention. Because if they do not enter insolvency, then you will not be eligible for payments from the government scheme. It does not pay out simply because employers don't fancy paying. That would leave her having to make a claim to an employment tribunal - a lengthy and costly process. And which still does not guarantee she will ever see her money.

She needs to find out exactly what is happening, and quickly.

richy4

Will report back when she receives the notice from her employer which is in the post apparently.

All 'correspondence' ie internal informal updates to all staff on the situation have always stated that the government will pay redundancy money?!

asajj

Are they referring to statutory redundancy amount? Are you sure that they are saying it will be paid by government?

sangie595

richy4 wrote: »

Will report back when she receives the notice from her employer which is in the post apparently.

All 'correspondence' ie internal informal updates to all staff on the situation have always stated that the government will pay redundancy money?!

Unless they are insolvent, that is not going to happen. Why would it? If every employer making people redundant could simply expect the gov't to pay it, no employer would ever pay! As I said before, she needs you actually adj the question - if they are insolvent then there should be an insolvency practitioner involved; if they are not then they will have to pay the redundancy.

McKneff

she would have 9 weeks notice and 9 weeks redundancy money plus any accrued holiday pay.

Good luck and let us know how she gets on.

richy4

Quick update, she hasn't received anything in post - which is interesting as they are obviously now cautious of what to put in writing regarding who's going to pay the redundancy payments when it should be them not the government.

In a 'update newsletter' which have been published every week during the looming end of the company's operation, one line of it says under an FAQ section that all redundancy payments will be made by the government. What is even more infuriating about this is that the Union seems oblivious to this outright lie!

sangie595

If she is in the union, why hasn't she asked them about this then?

Had she asked outright why the company believe they don't need to pay redundancy, and whether they are insolvent?