Made redundant to be replaced

DG95

Hi all,

Question is at the bottom to save reading it all.

Sorry if this has been asked before, I'm new to the forums; i've just been given a heads up that I am due to be made redundant in a few months. However, I am a contractor and was told that I am to be made redundant and replaced  by one of their full time staff who are to also lose their job (effectively they lost their job and the company are giving them my role so as to not have to pay them redundancy). I was also told I'd need to train this person up in my role before I leave.

My question is, is it lawful to make a contractor redundant to replace them with a permanent staff member doing the exact same role? I've also only been at my company for 18 months so I don't think I'm even eligible for redundancy pay.

Thanks all.

sharpe106

How long was your contract for?

unforeseen

Contractors aren't made redundant. It will be in the contract that you/your Ltd Co has with the agency what the notice and severance conditions are.

And the answer is that the company are quite within their rights to replace contractors with permies. I lost a role due to that about 6 years ago. 

DG95

sharpe106 said:

How long was your contract for?

It was a yearly contract through my recruitment company (1st Jan - 31st December) and usually got renewed each year. I forgot to mention I'm permanent with the recruitment company and they have a contract for me to work at this second company.

JReacher1

You’ve unfortunately not been made redundant. You’ve had your contract terminated to save the job of a permanent employee. 

This is unfortunately legal and one of the benefits of a company hiring contractors is that they can be replaced very easily.  From the employers point of view they’re rightly looking after their permanent employees. 

Grumpy_chap

You are a contractor and therefore entirely disposable.  You can't be made redundant.  Your contract may have a cancellation clause, other than that nothing.

It is entirely proper to swap a contractor for a staff member.

Thrugelmir

A permanent member of staff should be redeployed if there's a position available for them. As a contractor you have no termination rights other than those specified in your contract. In downturns it's an unfortunate fact of life that non permanent employees take the initial brunt of head count cuts. 

DG95

Sorry all, I think I left parts out in my haste - the redundancy would come from my company as I am a permanent full time employee but contracted elsewhere to another company where I'm no longer required. I'm not entirely sure where that leaves me in terms of my company, I was just using the words of my on site line manager about being made redundant.

Hopefully this isn't the case and I'll also be redirected within my own company. Just thought it was strange they'd be allowed to end the contract for a role to then just refill it with someone else untrained (and expect me to train them as well).

Thanks for the info anyway, this was my first full time role and I have zero clue about how this all works.

unforeseen

If your company have lost the contract with the end client to supply you then unless they can redeploy you to another role within the company you can be made redundant. 
If you were taken on specifically to work for/at the end client then that role is now redundant

Mmills

Regarding the retraining aspect - best to check in the contract whether or not that is within the scope of it. 
I have had similar situations where I have had to train up my replacement, and also been on the other side where I am the one being trained up by somebody who was made redundant (same person, twice, different roles - I felt really bad, and he wasn't very receptive the 2nd time around).  I wouldn't take it personally against the person you are re-training, however, if there is nothing to suggest that you should train them up, then maybe drag it out as long as possible until you find something.

Also, if they have no experience, is it something where they should legally have experience to keep to standards?  In which case, unless you are a trained instructor, you shouldn't have to.

It really does annoy me when staff are "expected" to train up new staff on the job, whether new or replacements.  I could imagine that more than half the time, the manager has next to no idea what the job entails.

General_Grant

By the way, even if you were a "permanent" employee you could be let go in a redundancy situation and another member of staff be redeployed to that position.