Redundancy

Katie0195

I was made redundant last week!

I am trying to get my head round a lot of things as I have never been in this situation before as it is my first job.

I have worked for the company for 2 and a half years- they have issued me gardening leave and my contract will be terminated on the 12th January.

Here’s my issue, I have never had an official contract I have never signed any paper work. I have an offer letter which was emailed to me and I have a ‘contract’ of such which was backdated from a sister Companys HR team. Is this something I should be checking with my union?

Seems weird that they are terminating a contract I’ve never been given!

Also any advice as to what to do after redundancy would be of amazing help!

Blatchford

You have a contract. The "contract" doesn't have to be in writing and usually isn't. They should have provided you with a statement of the main particulars of employment - what most people refer to as a contract, but actually isn't, it's just the "headlines". But whether they did or didn't really is a moot point right now - failure to issue the statement is not a big (or uncommon) deal. You can only add it as a claim to another thing (like unfair dismissal). If you are in a union then of course you should always check things with them. That is what you are paying for!

Whether the redundancy is fair in law or not is anyone's guess as you haven't told us anything, but your union will be able to advise.

Undervalued

Just to add to Blatchford's comments above.....

Your statutory redundancy entitlement will only be 2 weeks pay.

Your statutory notice entitlement would also be two weeks but you may have a contractual entitlement to more.

As you are being given a month's gardening leave I assume your notice was probably a month? You could have been required to work your notice so a month's gardening leave is at least a little extra compensation.

As B'ford has said, whether your redundancy was legally fair we cannot say on the information you have given. Unless there is good reason to believe it was not (which is probably unlikely) then there is little you can do.