Employment law is complex and often confusing and this is no different when we are discussing the law surrounding redundancy. The recession has hit many UK businesses hard and many employers have taken the step to make collective redundancies where more than 20 people are made redundant in a 90 day period. However, it seems that employers are trying to get away with saving costs that they legally have to pay by not going through the appropriate steps before letting their staff go.
The Tribunal service has recently published statistics that show a 150% rise in the number of cases being brought to employment law tribunals where collective redundancy has been made. Workers are acting quickly to hire employment law solicitors to battle for their case so that they do not lose out on their financial rights.
Before any large scale redundancies are made, employers are obliged to consult with the representatives of their workers and discuss the following alternatives;
- Ways in which redundancies could be avoided.
- Limiting the number of redundancies.
- Justifying the reasons for the redundancies and the consequences of such action.
An employee representative could be a member of the trade union for the workforce and if a union does not exist, employees have the right to elect representatives from their numbers for the specific purpose of redundancy consultation. If a work’s council is in operation the representative could come from this organisation.
If the employer fails to go through these means and simply lays off more than 20 workers at a time, they could be hit with a tribunal case which will take up much more of their time and money than a redundancy consultation would have taken. In some cases, employers who have not gone through the correct channels have had to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds to their former employees. An employment law solicitor will be able to help both employees and employers understand the processes of collective redundancy.
There is a higher awareness among workers that there are proper ways to go about collective redundancy and this makes it more likely that employees will be called to tribunal. Employment law solicitors are seeing huge rises in the number of clients looking for legal aid over redundancy issues and there cases are always successful when it can be proven that no consultation was made with employee representatives prior to the redundancies.
If you have been made redundant along with 10 or more of your fellow colleagues without notice given by your employer then you should get in touch with an employment law solicitor as you may be entitled to compensation or redress.