Who should be included??

farmerboy · 3 June 2019 at 12:26PM

Slightly hypothetical at the minute until we've had a meeting later this week, but after advice

Potential redundancies at work due to a temporary downturn in our industry. We have various job titles in the company, basically 4 areas, office staff, mechanics, plant operators and engineers. Mechanics and Engineers are also plant operators but not vice versa.

All the engineers have been called to a meeting later this week regarding the future, everyone is tight lipped as to what will be discussed and no other area of the company has been told of any meeting (other than office staff who had a review meeting a couple of months ago).

What we're wanting to know is can they only look for redundancies from the engineers or should they include the plant operators too? Several engineers could easily transfer back to operators and replace some lesser skilled operators.

Does it matter that our employment contracts have not been updated? Most of the engineers started as operators and then up skilled, but our contracts still show us as operators?

getmore4less · 3 June 2019 at 12:45PM

the company could chose to use bumping and offer skilled people lesser roles.

might be beneficial if the business turns the lower grades a re easier to fill and they retain the skills that are harder to recruit.

consultation is about looking for solutions to reduce the need to get rid of people.

Could be short time working, use up holidays, create more work...

As a group that's the sort of thing to be thinking about along side can I keep my job by pushing someone else out.

lisyloo · 3 June 2019 at 5:19PM

Bottom line is they can basically achieve whatever they want as long as they follow the legal procedures to do it.

If there were any clever ideas (like job sharing) it’s surprising that management haven’t thought of them.
I’ve never been through a situation where a consultation process has resulted in a magical solution coming out of the woodwork. If there was one management would have implemented it already,

One thing that can help is offering voluntary redundancy which offer those who want to leave a helping hand and those who want to stay a greater chance of keeping their job.

I do know of a situation where someone switched “pools” and kicked someone else out.

farmerboy · 3 June 2019 at 5:58PM

lisyloo wrote: »

I do know of a situation where someone switched “pools” and kicked someone else out.

This is the part that we're wondering as basically the operators and engineers work as one team ie most of the jobs the engineers are on will have 2 of them there, one acting as the operator and 1 as the engineer. Also if work is quiet the engineers are sent out as plant operators.

Can see it getting complicated as the company have a history of not doing things the right way. Once we know whats planned from the meeting we can go from there, luckily the vast majority of us are in the same union so will involve them if necessary

lisyloo · 3 June 2019 at 6:22PM

Depends on how they do it.
For example if they decide to have two pools then I would guess then engineers could switch to the operators pool.
However if they have one pool and decide to reduce the engineers then they won’t be able to switch.

It’s roles that are made redundant not people.

By arranging the pools, criteria, scores and weightings they can effectively get rid of who they want in a legal fashion.
Criteria and general subjective e.g. teamworking, so scores are all subjective and you don’t get access to everyone else’s scores.

There is generally IME no point trying to fight it unless there is something blatantly incorrect.

Masomnia · 4 June 2019 at 6:34PM

If engineer roles are going and people who are doing them can do the lower skilled plant operating roles then imho they should offer that to them and include operators in the pool. Engineers who want to do so should raise it at consultation. No guarantees, and wouldn't necessarily keep their salary etc but I think the company should at least consider it.

No hard and fast rules on this though and I'm not saying it's a straightforward unfair dismissal if the company don't consider it.

farmerboy · 6 June 2019 at 7:30AM

Just an update

Had the meeting and it was worse than we thought really, all of the engineers put on notice of redundancy. Letter later this week, 5 working days for voluntary, then 1 to 1 meetings within 7 days of that, then another meeting for the decision within 7 days of that. Questions regarding possibility of transfering to plant side and if he was keeping a small team on were said would be discussed in the 1 to 1 meetings.

Just a case of waiting and see now as to what happens next.

farmerboy · 6 June 2019 at 7:34AM

Masomnia wrote: »

If engineer roles are going and people who are doing them can do the lower skilled plant operating roles then imho they should offer that to them and include operators in the pool. Engineers who want to do so should raise it at consultation. No guarantees, and wouldn't necessarily keep their salary etc but I think the company should at least consider it.

No hard and fast rules on this though and I'm not saying it's a straightforward unfair dismissal if the company don't consider it.

Pretty much what you've said is what I think will happen in our 1 to 1 meetings. think they've kept the operators out of it as it would put them over the 19 people being made redundant so mean longer consultation, plus opens them up more to unfair dismissal as to diverse a skill structure to compare fairly. I think the operators are next though.

Who should be included??

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