Boss Dissapeared

Sue11 · 20 April 2017 at 10:20AM

Hi everyone
I am chairman of a community group in our village and have been approached by a resident, James, who has asked a question that I hope someone can give me some help with. I don't think there is an easy answer to this though. He approached Citizens Advice but James is not very good at understanding the answers they came up so could not remember what they said.
It relates to a job he held with a company for the past 22 years which over time actually changed hands twice. The last owner, some months ago, went away on holiday for two weeks and left James in charge. For the first week he was paid, the beginning of the second week he went to work to find all the locks had been changed because apparently the owner had not paid his rent. James has never since heard from his boss.
James is talking about not getting any redundancy which I am not sure he can do anything about and bearing in mind he does't know where his ex boss lives anything he is entitled to could be a problem. James is now 56 years old, not very literate and cannot drive so finding a new job is going to be very difficult.
Does anyone have any idea if he is actually entitled to anything.
Many Thanks
Sue

sangie595 · 20 April 2017 at 10:26AM

How many months ago? If he had left this more than three months, unless the employer declared insolvency, which it sounds like he didn't, I'm afraid it's too late to do anything about it. If the employer declared insolvency, then possibly they is something he can do.

ACG · 20 April 2017 at 10:52AM

Is the company a limited company? - https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/ - you could potentially find a different registered address or accountants details to give you something to go off.

I am not sure if he can claim redundancy as its difficult to say if he has been made redundant - https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay

Sue11 · 23 April 2017 at 10:15AM

Thank you

ACG and sangie 595 for the info it was a help it was much appreciated.

Sue

professor~yaffle · 23 April 2017 at 11:38AM

He wasn't made redundant, - the boss has literally scarpered. Probably knew that "James" wasn't very savvy and decided to cop the money and run without paying their bills, or the staff wages. Sadly it looks like you can do that here in the UK, where employees don't have that many rights.

sangie595 · 23 April 2017 at 12:43PM

professor~yaffle wrote: »

He wasn't made redundant, - the boss has literally scarpered. Probably knew that "James" wasn't very savvy and decided to cop the money and run without paying their bills, or the staff wages. Sadly it looks like you can do that here in the UK, where employees don't have that many rights.

Nobody is ever made redundant - they are dismissed by reason of redundancy, and under the technical definition of this, your boss disappearing actually qualify as "redundancy". Whether you can access redundancy pay is an entirely different matter. The two things do not automatically sit alongside each other.

And sadly, employers can scarper anywhere in the world! It is hardly something that is unique to the UK.

Whilst employment rights may be under attack on the UK, it is untrue that workers do not have many rights. We still have far more than the majority of countries in the world, and at least in the UK we are not jailed or murdered for exercising them.

SUE.- did you find out what had happened to the company?

Boss Dissapeared

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