Righto, a little update for you all regarding my untimely redundancy:
The company have agreed to supply me with references that I can vet and confirmation that the position I held at the company is now redundant so I can sign on, keep my house contents and car insurance paid up etc. This is what they are required to do by law.
Now, under UK employment law, because I have worked for the company (on their books) for 2 years and 8 months I have the statutory right to 2 weeks written notice of redundancy. If you recall I may have mentioned that I and my colleague were told verbally on Monday afternoon and expected to confirm by Wednesday the same week.
Because the company failed to notify us in the required time period, I am entitled to be compensated for this - 2 weeks pay in lieu of the 2 week notification period (& for my colleague, she has been with the company for 8 years so current UK law states she must have a weeks notice for every years service up to a limit of 12 years). This payment is to be made on top of my redundancy payment (redundancy lump sum is tax free).
So far the company have tacked on my compensation to my months severance pay, which is taxable. Plus they have not done as I asked and detailed where all of the figures have come from and been worked out for severance pay, redundancy pay, outstanding holiday pay, and the compensation.
The place I worked for is one of, if not
the largest refrigeration contractor in the UK. It completely staggers me that they should get the process of initiating staff redundancy so badly wrong. It's not like the people who draw up the paperwork don't know the law regarding this, after all it's their job, damn it. I can only conclude that they think we'll just acquiesce to whatever they say contractually, believing that we think their rules supersede the government legislature concerning employment. In other words, they are doing all of this on purpose so they don't have to pay out or follow the rules if they thing they can get away with it.
I don't want to hound them for making me redundant,far from it, but I will not stand by whilst I get screwed over in procedure for the sake of a couple of hundred quid.
I have a meeting with one of the middle bosses on Monday morning where I hope to iron out the errors in their offer.
As with so many things employees are supposed to be loyal to their employer, but when push comes to shove it's a very different story when it comes to the company's loyalty to do right by their employees.
Fortunately my other half is on the road to recovery following her operation and is doing well, if a little emotionally shaky. Doubly good for me is that her mother works for the Citizens Advice Bureau and has given me a wealth of information about redundancy which has enabled me to see how I have not been fairly dealt with by my employer thus far - also this is good for my colleague who also had no knowledge of the correct proceedings and stands to gain a good deal more in recompense due to her years of service, also being in her early 50's, this knowledge will leave her in a better financial position given that she had intended to stay with the company until retirement and so had no contingency plans to take into account the possibility of loosing her job.
Long gone are the days when you could say you had a job for life. Profitability is the name of the game and that's all that matters to the new MD and our parent company- whilst we were making a healthy profit for them they were content to leave us alone, but now we have this new guy to make even more money for them and the most obvious way to do this is to get rid of staff at all of our branches across the country. The word is that the two remaining draughtsman will have to shoulder the workload which (though the refrigeration business is seasonal; quiet in winter and busy in summer) has not diminished in quantity and if there is an over spill, then the company will employ a temp who know nothing about the job, on a crap wage for one or two days per week to alleviate this.
My personal feeling is that this is a false economy. But what do I know, apart from having to fight for my legal entitlement to being treated in a fair and correct manner, that is?
Wish me luck for Monday and getting shot of this mess and the people who created it
Then I can devote my attention to getting a better job and looking after
her for a couple of weeks.