13th November 2008, 03:26 PM
There a number of stages to the current situation:
1. Not recruiting via places like BAJR (which has already happened) and only appointing posts internally
2. Laying people off at the end of a short term contract (a normal process) and other natural wastage (which is happening)
3. Laying off of people who have been employed less than two years (ie people who are not entitled to redundancy pay)
4. Redundancy of long term field staff (This appears to be happening)
5. Redundancy or demotion of project managers
6. Redundancy of project officers (PO will tend to be employed longer because of report writing)
7. Laying off of post X staff
There is quite a cost to making people redundant and I think it naïve to think that a union will somehow get a better deal for people. The best that people can hope for is the stat minimum of redundancy pay and at worst the company going bust because they canât afford the redundancy payments. What the Unions can do is ensure that the redundancy procedures, particularly, are fair.
I would draw everybodyâs attention to the rules for consultation for collective redundancy (20 people or more) which must begin before a decision to make people redundant has actually been made. See http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employme...13852.html
âWhat does the consultation process mean in practice?
(a) When should consultation begin?
Consultation with employee representatives must begin in good time and at least 30 or 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect i.e. the day on which employees actually leave their posts (see below). Consultation must begin when the employer is 'proposing' the redundancies. In other words, he should not have come to a definite decision to make employees redundant and the employee representatives should still be able to influence the outcome. Where the employer is proposing to dismiss between 20 and 99 employees, consultation must begin at least 30 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where the employer is proposing 100 or more redundancies, the consultation must begin at least 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where there are no employee representatives, the employer should begin the process of electing employee representatives as quickly as possible (discussed above).â
Given the current state of play redundancy must be on the cards in every big company so is this kind of consultation exercise being carried out?
There also is a clear issue of what happens when a developer goes bust - who pays for the post X and are companies under an obligation to complete the post X work? Similarly who pays for the costs of the deposition of the archive or even the preparation of the archive?
1. Not recruiting via places like BAJR (which has already happened) and only appointing posts internally
2. Laying people off at the end of a short term contract (a normal process) and other natural wastage (which is happening)
3. Laying off of people who have been employed less than two years (ie people who are not entitled to redundancy pay)
4. Redundancy of long term field staff (This appears to be happening)
5. Redundancy or demotion of project managers
6. Redundancy of project officers (PO will tend to be employed longer because of report writing)
7. Laying off of post X staff
There is quite a cost to making people redundant and I think it naïve to think that a union will somehow get a better deal for people. The best that people can hope for is the stat minimum of redundancy pay and at worst the company going bust because they canât afford the redundancy payments. What the Unions can do is ensure that the redundancy procedures, particularly, are fair.
I would draw everybodyâs attention to the rules for consultation for collective redundancy (20 people or more) which must begin before a decision to make people redundant has actually been made. See http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employme...13852.html
âWhat does the consultation process mean in practice?
(a) When should consultation begin?
Consultation with employee representatives must begin in good time and at least 30 or 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect i.e. the day on which employees actually leave their posts (see below). Consultation must begin when the employer is 'proposing' the redundancies. In other words, he should not have come to a definite decision to make employees redundant and the employee representatives should still be able to influence the outcome. Where the employer is proposing to dismiss between 20 and 99 employees, consultation must begin at least 30 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where the employer is proposing 100 or more redundancies, the consultation must begin at least 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where there are no employee representatives, the employer should begin the process of electing employee representatives as quickly as possible (discussed above).â
Given the current state of play redundancy must be on the cards in every big company so is this kind of consultation exercise being carried out?
There also is a clear issue of what happens when a developer goes bust - who pays for the post X and are companies under an obligation to complete the post X work? Similarly who pays for the costs of the deposition of the archive or even the preparation of the archive?