Your Employer’s Responsibility with regards to Redundancy.

1. The employer must draw up a plan to decide who will be kept on and who will be made redundant and why.
2. The employer must inform the workforce as soon as possible, so they have a chance put forward alternatives or apply for other jobs with the current employer or with another employer.
3. The employer should consider any proposals that the employee’s or their representatives make as an alternative to redundancy.
4. The employer should decide as soon as possible how many employees will be made redundant.

Consulting.

1. The employer must consult the employee’s representatives (this includes Unions) if 20 or more people are going to be made redundant.
2. The employer must discuss alternatives to redundancy and the selection criteria for redundancy.
3. The employer can carry on the redundancy procedures whilst the consultation is going on (for example, sending out redundancy notices to the effected employees). However, the employer should not issue redundancy notices before he has had a chance to consult properly.
4. If the employer does not consult properly the Employment Tribunal can make the employer pay a “Protective Award”. This states that the employer must keep the employees on and must pay their wages for a certain amount of time (whether they actually remain working or not). The length of this Protective Award period is usually fairly short.

Department of Trade and Industry.

The employer must consult the Department of Trade and Industry (D.T.I.) 30 days before dismissal if they are going to make between 20 - 99 employees redundant. Or 90 days if over 100 are to be dismissed. One of the reasons for this is so that the DTI can compile accurate employment statistics and records.

Selection Procedure.

1. If a group of employees are selected for redundancy the employer must show what type of work they do and why the demand for that work has decreased or stopped completely.
2. If the amount of work has decreased so that only some of the employees within a group are selected, the employer must show how they picked those unlucky ones.
3. The employer must show in detail the selection procedure and criteria. This can range from "last in first out" to a scoring system, with the employer giving points for certain job skills.
4. The selection criteria should not be based upon an individual’s view of each employee (for example, what the personnel manager thinks).
5. Once the criteria has been agreed it should be kept to.
6. The employer should also try and agree the selection criteria with the employees’ representatives or Union.

The selection procedure and criteria cannot be based upon unfair reasons such as:

Trade Union membership or activity.

If the selection criteria is based upon Race, Disability or Sex the effected employee can claim under Unfair Dismissal or the relevant discrimination law.

The employer must consult each effected employee before dismissal notices are handed out, so that there is a chance of real consultation and time for the employee to respond. The selected group may change due to the consultation process.

The consultation must involve the following:

1. Why their type of job is under threat.
2. Explain why according to the selection criteria.

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