Can they do this - make employees say who has to leave

JohnAndrew

I work for a local authority in Scotland. They are going through some radical changes to the Service I work in.

I am in a team of 3 - and our manhours total 34 - they want to reduce to a total of 15 hours.

We have been given the statutory amount of time as the consultation and decisions have to be made by 31st December. The changes will take place in April next year.

No redundancy - either voluntary or compulsory, they have said that our team has to decide how we want to split the hours. Our current contracts are 14 hours x 2 employees and 1 x 6hrs.

Is this a normal thing now to ask the employees how we want to share the hours?

They've also offered redeployment either in the same service or, failing that, in another Council job.

myself and one other colleague - 14 hours each - reach State pension age in early 2021. The other colleague has reached SPA and is claiming.

I don't think it is fair and reasonable to expect us to sort this out by ourselves - do you?

TELLIT01

No it isn't fair or right for the employer to expect the employees to decide how to split the hours down. That is a job for management and they are trying to avoid their responsibility. All 3 of you need to stick together and refuse to do it, and say it's management's job.

Alter_ego

JohnAndrew wrote: »

No redundancy - either voluntary or compulsory

So do they plan on sackings?

PasturesNew

Maybe they are clumsily asking for your input as it's possible somebody might have had enough already, or you want reduced hours and you do come up with a solution you love that they'd have never guessed at.

See it as an opportunity to get what you want, with a backdrop of being able to send the task back to management if your collective ideas clash.

JohnAndrew

Alter_ego wrote: »

So do they plan on sackings?

I think they are waiting for colleagues like myself, who only has a few years or less to do before SPA, to leave by natural means ie early retirement.

I said - on the record - that they are shaking the tree and waiting for all us crusty conkers to fall off! HR nearly fell off their chair!! and quckly denied it of course..

elsien

Do any of you want to be redeployed or cut your hours - if yes, then just say so and let management make decisions about the others.

unforeseen

3 people to cover 34 hours a week?

Words fail me. I'm guessing that all are long term employees and some time in the past the council decided on this route to save them paying redundancy and its still going on.

Its difficult to justify 3 people doing 34 hours let alone 3 people doing 15.

JohnAndrew

elsien wrote: »

Do any of you want to be redeployed or cut your hours - if yes, then just say so and let management make decisions about the others.

No, that's the point - we wanted to wait for SPA to get the maximum pension amount. Also, it is a final salary pension and that will be cut considerably if we cut our hours.

getmore4less

Ask them if your current job with current hours till exists.

If not it is a redundancy situation.

If not what suitable alternatives are they offering.

You can still talk to each other and come up with a solution.

The hours on offer are less than half the current hours so be careful not to accept reduced hours an lose the automatic redundancy option for reduced hours.

You could say you want to split the hours 15:0:0 and let them come up with suitable alternatives for 2 people.

How are they going to cover holiday and sick with one person.

getmore4less

JohnAndrew wrote: »

No, that's the point - we wanted to wait for SPA to get the maximum pension amount. Also, it is a final salary pension and that will be cut considerably if we cut our hours.

Is that the way the pension works at your place often you can protect the early years at the high level.

JohnAndrew

unforeseen wrote: »

3 people to cover 34 hours a week?

Words fail me. I'm guessing that all are long term employees and some time in the past the council decided on this route to save them paying redundancy and its still going on.

Its difficult to justify 3 people doing 34 hours let alone 3 people doing 15.

no, not really, perhaps I should have said that the hours worked are over 6 days and different 'shift' patterns. A bit like job sharing.
Your not my boss are you? I agree it is ludicrous to expect us to share 15 hours - do you have any helpful suggestions?