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worked for my employer for nearly 30 years, and I am being made redundant on 1 March. They tell me that I will receive £12,900 redundancy plus they will pay me four weeks in lieu of my contractual notice. I have been transferred under TUPE three times but I thought I would get more than that. The equivalent of five months’ salary doesn’t seem a lot for all those years.
Do the firm need to consult us? Q. I am the rep in a small travel agency which used to have 10 branches but now only has four. There are about six staff in each branch. The owners are closing it down and making us all redundant. I say they must have a 30 day consultation period where more than 20 staff are being made redundant but they say they don’t have to. Who is right? A.Here comes the lawyer’s definitive answer: it depends. The law says there must be consultation where there are more than 20 redundancies ‘within an establishment’. The problem then arises over what constitutes an establishment. The company is no doubt trying to claim each shop is a separate establishment to prevent the compulsory consultation. There has been a lot of case law over what is meant by ‘establishment’, and the latest Employment Appeals Tribunal decision seems to be that establishment means the unit to which each employee is assigned. Therefore if fewer than 20 people work at a particular branch, then for consultation purposes the establishment does not meet the criteria for compulsory consultation. This does not mean that your work as a rep is over. You can still represent each individual member, making sure the employer is following proper procedures and statutory requirements, and make sure the members know and get what they are entitled to (see the previous answer).
Republic of Ireland
Based on CC BY 2 Gwydion M. Williams
A. It looks as though they are offering you the statutory redundancy pay and you’re dead right it isn’t a lot, but sadly that’s all you get. Under the statutory scheme you are entitled to one week’s pay for every year of employment, up to a maximum of 20 years. For each year over the age of 40 that
increases to a week and a half, so you get 20 x 1.5 weeks = 30 weeks’ pay. So far so good, but the employer can cap that amount. The cap was £430, however, the (slightly) good news is that from 1 Feb it is now £450, so you are entitled to the current maximum statutory redundancy pay of £13,500. You are also entitled to statutory notice pay of one week for every year worked up to a maximum of 12 weeks. You can also be paid for any untaken leave. If you have taken more than your accrued leave they cannot take that back unless your contract says so. As you have been TUPEd, check your original contract to see if that says anything about redundancy pay. If that offers you better than the statutory pay, then that’s what you should get.
0800 3282673/1800 805272
Q. I will be 63 in April. I have
UK
Redundancy pay – is that it?
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