Can I appeal redundancy for unfair dismissal? 2 November 2020 at 1:21PM in Redundancy & redundancy planning 10 replies 564 views

Limeskies345

Hello, hope someone can advise.
I’ve recently been made redundant following a consultation and interview process. I was in a selection pool consisting of 2 males and 2 females. 

Only myself and 2 males interviewed and I was made redundant. The other female didn’t take part in the interview as she was on maternity and stressed.

Is this fair? I suppose the males could have claimed sex discrimination, where do I stand on this? 

Any help would be appreciated :-) thank you 

JReacher1

This is from citizens advice

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-citizens-advice-works/media/press-releases/citizens-advice-faqs-can-you-be-made-redundant-while-pregnant-or-on-furlough/

“
There is additional protection for women who are on maternity leave, or those on shared parental leave. If you are on maternity or parental leave, and there is a genuine reason to make your role redundant, your employer must offer you suitable alternative work if they have it. They should give you this as a priority over other employees.”

If they were making one out of four roles redundant this would seem to suggest that the person on maternity leave is protected. 

Comms69

What do you think isnt fair?

Thrugelmir

Redundancy is a fair reason for dismissal. 

Anamox

Good to see the old timers completely missing the point as usual.

Are you a member of a union to discuss this with? It depends on the situation of the other female, you never know they may have contacted her by other means and decided she was the best one to keep? If not, it may be as JReacher says. 

Comms69

Anamox said:

Good to see the old timers completely missing the point as usual.

Are you a member of a union to discuss this with? It depends on the situation of the other female, you never know they may have contacted her by other means and decided she was the best one to keep? If not, it may be as JReacher says. 

Great advice, thanks for that. It wasnt obvious at all.... and your post added loads to the discussion

JReacher1

Comms69 said:

Anamox said:

Good to see the old timers completely missing the point as usual.

Are you a member of a union to discuss this with? It depends on the situation of the other female, you never know they may have contacted her by other means and decided she was the best one to keep? If not, it may be as JReacher says. 

Great advice, thanks for that. It wasnt obvious at all.... and your post added loads to the discussion

I don’t normally disagree with you but I think it’s pretty obvious from the OP’s post what they were questioning was unfair. 

To sum up they wanted to know whether it was fair that one of the four people at risk of redundancy didn’t appear to go through the same process as the other three. As that person was on maternity based on the link I posted it does appear to be fair to treat people on redundancy differently if they are on maternity. 

Thrugelmir

Anamox said:

Good to see the old timers completely missing the point as usual.

Supposition is that the individual on maternity leave is immune to the impact of the reorganisation within the business. For which there's nothing to suggest there is as yet. 

Anamox

Thrugelmir said:

Redundancy is a fair reason for dismissal. 

Except for when it is not fair, which happens a lot more than your comment infers. 

avawat20

Thrugelmir said:

Redundancy is a fair reason for dismissal. 

Correct but the process needs to be followed for it to be fair. If a fair process is not followed then it can be deemed an unfair dismissal.

OP - those on maternity leave in a redundancy situation have priority for suitable alternative roles as it's a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

Thrugelmir

Anamox said:

Thrugelmir said:

Redundancy is a fair reason for dismissal. 

Except for when it is not fair, which happens a lot more than your comment infers. 

To put it bluntly. Someone is going to lose their job. Not pleasant making people redundant. Anybody that suffers the fate has my empathy. Suffered the same fate myself over my working life. To argue a personal position requires something substantive. People often are tainted by their own personal experience and feeling of injustice.