Made redundant after coming back from sick leave

irishgal94

Hi,

A friend of mine has been made redundant after coming back from sick leave. They were off for 2 weeks.
They live with two chronic illnesses and this is the second time in the last year they've been off on the sick.
Their company says they are making them redundant due to COVID-19, but nobody else has been told their job is also at risk. 
Is there anything dodgy about this? I have advised them to contact citizens advice as it seems very fishy to me. 
Any advice would be much appreciated.

sharpe106

They can’t just make them redundant for returning from sick leave, they would need to go down medical efficiency route if that was the reason.

 

But as the company says it is COVID reasons, that potentially can be a realistic reason.  But they can’t just say you have a bad sick record so it is you without telling other people that redundancies are being made.  

 

The process has to be fair, does your friend just do a standalone job or are the others doing a similar job?   

irishgal94

sharpe106 said:

They can’t just make them redundant for returning from sick leave, they would need to go down medical efficiency route if that was the reason.

 

But as the company says it is COVID reasons, that potentially can be a realistic reason.  But they can’t just say you have a bad sick record so it is you without telling other people that redundancies are being made.  

 

The process has to be fair, does your friend just do a standalone job or are the others doing a similar job?   

It's a standalone job. 

sharpe106

How long have they worked there for?

Would the illness be recognised under the disability act?

irishgal94

sharpe106 said:

How long have they worked there for?

Would the illness be recognised under the disability act?

They've worked there for 11 months.
Yes, one of their conditions would be recognised under the disability act. 

sharpe106

So basically to recap they were working a standalone job, they had been working there for 11 months and had been off sick at least twice. They also have a condition that is recognised under the disability act.

A person that is disabled can still be made redundant that just can’t be the reason. They need to be treated equally.

 When a person gets made redundant it is actually the job not the person who gets made redundant, it is just the unlucky job holder that goes with the job. When jobs are made redundant and there is group of people doing the job or similar job then they need to have a process of who gets chosen, could be last in first out, could be performance but it has to be fair.

 The problem becomes when it is a standalone job that gets stopped. There is only one job going and one person doing it. So proving unfair dismissal is a lot harder. So is the job completely dissimilar to others?  , has the job actually gone or have they redeployed the work? Or have they puts somebody else into the position.

TBagpuss

It sounds as though she was in a 'pool' of one, which would explain why no-one else was told that their job was at risk. 
In addition, as she has only worked for 11 months they can dismiss her for any non-discriminatory reason. So they can't dismiss her as a result of her disability, but they can legally dismiss her because there is less work due to Covid so they need to make savings.
I think she would find it very hard to prove that it was related to her disability or to her sickness absence. 
 

Masomnia

TBagpuss said:

I think she would find it very hard to prove that it was related to her disability or to her sickness absence. 
 

What makes you say that?

sharpe106

Being a stand alone job probably. It depends how much of a stand alone job it is.