Redundancy is one of the most traumatic events an employee may experience. Announcement of redundancies will invariably have an adverse impact on morale, motivation and productivity. The negative effects can be reduced by sensitive handling of redundant employees and those remaining. You can make a difference to how you are treated during this process by knowing your rights.
A genuine redundancy only arises when either there has been, or is going to be:
- a cessation of business
- a cessation of business at the employee's site
- a reduction or cessation of work.
In recent UNISON surveys, the primary reasons for making redundancies are listed as reorganised working methods and efficiency/improved competitiveness. Even during expansion, redundancies can occur if specific work is disbanded. In a substantial minority of cases, redundancies are not accompanied by falls in total staff numbers and have either no effect on total numbers or are more than offset by recruitment. Westminster City Council has said that up 400 roles are being deleted. This does not mean that 400 people will be made redundant.
Managing redundancy
If possible, it is preferable for an organisation to establish a formal procedure on redundancy. In many organisations a formal agreement may have been negotiated and agreed between management and trade union or employee representatives. Westminster UNISON is negotiating on your behalf.
At the very least in order to plan and implement a redundancy situation properly, the following stages will be followed in most redundancies:
- Planning
- Invitation of volunteers
- Consultation, both collective and individual
- Identification of a pool for selection
- Notification of large-scale redundancies (more than 20 employees) to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) (formerly DTI) now BIS
- Use of objective selection criteria
- Compliance with all three stages of statutory dismissal procedures
- Advance notice of individual consultation meeting
- Permitting a colleague to be present at consultation meetings
- Opportunity to appeal
- Allowing seeking of suitable alternative employment
- Statutory or other redundancy payment, relocation expenses
- Helping redundant employees obtain training or alternative work.
- Planning and preventive measures
- Organisations should always attempt to avoid redundancies. Ways of doing this include:
- Natural wastage
- Recruitment freeze (All recruitment now has to be signed off by Mike More)
- Stopping or reducing overtime (Is this happening in your area?)
- offer early retirement to volunteers (subject to age discrimination issues)
- Retraining or redeployment (If you receive a vulnerability letter ensure you know your rights)
- Offering existing employees sabbaticals and secondments.(Is this happening in your area?)
- Seeking volunteers
As part of the overall procedure, once the need for redundancies has been identified and careful planning has taken place, offering a voluntary redundancy package and then seeking willing redundancy volunteers may avoid compulsory redundancies altogether.
Westminster UNISON has been in consultation with Westminster City Council about voluntary redundancy and flexible retirement. We will continue consulting on these issues with the hope of an agreement.
Individual and collective consultation
Individual consultation is necessary for all redundancies and the law requires that collective consultation is required in the multiple redundancy situations referred to below. As an absolute minimum before 6 April 2009, organisations must follow the three key steps of the statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedure. From 6 April 2009 organisations should follow the stages their own redundancy procedure, which as a bare minimum should encompass the stages referred to in this fact sheet and adhere to the ACAS guidance on handling redundancies.
Please make yourself aware of Westminster's policies on disciplinary and grievance procedures (available on WCC's Wire under HR policies ).
If you have a grievance on how you have been unfairly selected for redundancy you must make your complaint very quickly! Contact your shop steward or convenor.
Are you being disciplined unfairly? Please contact your shop steward before any investigation takes place for advice and support. Disciplinaries always increase during cuts!!
If you do not have a shop steward in your area, get together with other UNISON members and vote one in. Ask our Branch Office for a steward nomination form.
Make yourself known to your convenor and they will help with voting in a shop steward.
Offer yourself or one of your team as a spokesperson for the redundancy negotiations.
Consultation should also include:
- The reason for the redundancy dismissals
- Why and how individuals have been selected
- Possible ways of avoiding redundancy
- Possible alternative work.
Collective consultations with UNISON and other recognised trade unions or elected representatives must start at least 90 days beforehand for proposed redundancy dismissals of 100 or more employees, and at least 30 days before notification of redundancies for 20-99 employees. In cases where collective consultation is required, it must be completed before notice of dismissal is given to any of the employees concerned. The law requires meaningful consultation - it is not enough only to inform. The maximum compensation that can be awarded if an employer fails to consult is 90 days pay.
Formal consultation will commence on the 1st July 2009 or very shortly thereafter. Have you got a shop steward or someone in your area on the CUTS STEERING GROUP?
UNISON will tell you when we have finished consulting with Westminster City Council.
If you receive a notice of dismissal before UNISON have finished consulting you can be awarded compensation. Please inform your shop steward, convenor or the branch office if this happens. We will provide you with a proforma grievance which you must complete immediately.
Selection
In the earlier stages, Westminster City Council will need to carefully determine the initial selection pool for redundancy. Unless there is a customary arrangement, Westminster City Council should identify the group of employees at the planning stage who may be made redundant. This will usually be those who undertake a similar type of work in a particular department, or work at a relevant location, or whose work has either ceased or diminished, or is expected to do so. These will be the selection pool.
In the later stages of the redundancy process, individuals must be selected from within the wider pool. Where there is a choice between employees, selection must be based on objective criteria which may include:
- Length of service
- Attendance records
- Disciplinary records
- Skills, competencies and qualifications
- Work experience
- Performance records.
Following the age discrimination legislation, ‘last in, first out'
(LIFO) is now risky as a selection method. Case law has held that LIFO may
still be a relevant as part of a wider range of selection criteria, however it
must not be used as a sole method of selection, and the employer must be able
to justify its use. However LIFO remains a risky method, and is usually an
unsatisfactory way of retaining the most competent.
Tribunals should look favourably on selection procedures based on a points
system which scores each employee against the relevant criteria. However,
great care must be taken in the choice and application of the criteria to avoid
factors which may be discriminatory on any grounds. Unfairness can be indirect
or overt, for example, selection of part-timers in preference to full-timers
could be discriminatory if a high proportion of women are affected.
If you believe you have been unfairly selected for redundancy please contact your shop steward, convenor or the branch office. You will need to take out a grievance and we will provide you with a proforma.
Have you been selected because of your part-time status, pregnancy or maternity-related reasons sex, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, race, religion or union activity? All of these reasons are automatically unfair and you will need advice quickly. Contact your shop steward, convenor or the branch office immediately!!
Notification
At least 90 days written notification must be given to BERR if 100 or more employees are to be made redundant, and at least 30 days for 20 to 99 employees. For less than 20 employees, no notification to BERR is required.
A dismissal may also be a normal (i.e. not automatic) unfair dismissal if there is not a genuine redundancy or if the selection criteria are too imprecise or subjective. And although the reasons for redundancy may be completely fair, it may still be judged unfair on procedural grounds such as lack of consultation.
Appeals
Employees dismissed by reason of redundancy must be given the opportunity to appeal their selection for redundancy. The appeal must be handled carefully and comply with the three key steps of the statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedure.
Alternatives
Employers must consider suitable alternative work and are expected to look for alternatives throughout the organisation. There is an offer procedure dealing with this. The law removes entitlement to a statutory redundancy payment if an employee unreasonably refuses a suitable alternative.
Time off
The law requires employees be given paid time off to look for work during the final notice period.
Compensation
Dismissed employees with two or more years' service are entitled to a minimum redundancy payment. Westminster City Council pays more than the law prescribes. Westminster UNISON will continue to consult with Westminster on the redundancy payment which was reduced last year just before announcing they were making these large levels of redundancy. Westminster pays 1.5 weeks pay for every full year of work completed.
Appeals
Employees dismissed by reason of redundancy must be given the opportunity to appeal their selection for redundancy. The appeal must be handled carefully and comply with the three key steps of the statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedure.
Alternatives
Employers must consider suitable alternative work and are expected to look for alternatives throughout the organisation. There is an offer procedure dealing with this. The law removes entitlement to a statutory redundancy payment if an employee unreasonably refuses a suitable alternative.
Time off
The law requires employees be given paid time off to look for work during the final notice period.
