Transfer of employees

Hi,
I am considering purchasing a business but in order to make it viable i would need to make some of the staff redundant.

1 a 65 year old 18 hrs a week 2 years service

2 a 67 year old 15 hrs a week 20 years service

The presant owner states that the latter wants to cut her hours and if you were agressive to her she would `up and go` anyway (I would call this bulling) which I wont do.

Both are on £6.00 p/h.

My question is manly about the latter what would the cost implicatios and time scale be if she would not volantaraly aggree to a change in her contract (by the way she has not got one at the moment as the presant owner states he preferes to keep it off the record incase he wants to change things).

Thanks

Ron

Glad to hear you won't bully staff. I hope you also don't intend to act illegally! Because to have decide who is to go at this stage, without any process to fairly and objectively select who goes it would be unlawful to have decided who is to go (so, strike one - you have already acted unlawfully!), and it would be very dodgy, unless the entire workforce happens to be over the age of 65 to be selecting only the older staff - smacks of a case of age discrimination coming on. Strike two would be that she does have a contract and the current employer is acting unlawfully in not providing written statements of particulars, but there is nothing "off record" - a tribunal, should you land in one (and it is likley to be you if you buy this business) will determine the terms that apply. And I would lay bets based on what you have said that this is be unlawful tip of an iceberg - I will lay bets that the current employer isn't paying ho9lidays etc properly either. He sounds the sort.

Roughly speaking, to make the 20 years employee redundant you would have to pay or give 12 weeks notice plus a week and a half's pay for each year of service up to 20 years (since they were over 41 when they started working for the employer) - that is 30 weeks pay. Assuming of course that you do not land yourself in a tribunal for age discrimination and unfair selelction for redundancy, in which case it will cost you a lot more in legal fees alone. And throw in the possible 13 weeks pay for a tribunal if they decide to award it for not providing a written statement of main particulars.

Thanks for reply the selection was made on the ability of the staff how long they had worked in the business amdability to work different shifts, sobefore I do something illigal I hadbetter rethink.

You could not possibly have scored them on this - you don't employ them, and you have't discussed any of this with them! You are taking somebody elses word for this. And even if you had done so, it is still fishy that it turns out that the oldest employees score so poorly - especially when one of them has worked there 20 years. If you want to do this, do it properly, in full consultation with the individuals. For example, the 67 year old may be happy to volunteer for redundancy - you would still have to pay her, but the problem is solved if she is happy to go.