Shift payment not included in redundancy payment.

Hi, I wonder if someone knows if my company have to include my shift payment in with my redundancy payment? It is written into my contract that we recieve a 33% shift allowance for, working shifts, and we have recieved this payment for 8 years.
Now my employer has said that the shift allowance will not be included in our redundancy pay. Is this right? I would have thought that if it is in our contract, they would have to include it. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Phil

Thank you for your question.

A weeks pay for the calculation of redundancy pay is the amount of pay you receive under the terms of your contract for employment.

If you work normal hours and your pay doesn't change from week to week, your week's pay will be your basic weekly wage or salary.

If your working hours vary from week to week because of shift work, and your earnings vary as a result, your pay should be averaged out over a 12 week period.

Do you work the same shift each week and receive the same shift allowance or do your hours vary?

Hi, We work a shift system 4 days, 2 off, 2 nights, 2 off, 3 days, 3 off, 4 nights, 8 off. This is a rolling shift pattern and does not change. The shift allowance is on our contract and we get paid the same shift allowance every month.

Hi many thanks for your reply.

This shift allowance should therefore be included in the calculation for your weekly pay.

If your employer fails to pay you or disputes this entitlement, you should make a written request to your employer or to an employment tribunal within six months of the date the job ends.

Thanks for the reply. A colleague of mine has been pressing this with the company and have said the following:
Because they are paying us over the statutory minimum redundancy payment they are not willing to pay us our shift allowance in with our redundancy.

They are giving us a months payment for every year we have been there, instead of the statutory 1 week per year. We still believe that we should get this payment in with our redundancy. Should we continue to push this?

Thanks,
Phil.

Hi Phil

I beg your parcdon, I was referring to the calculation of 'weekly pay' for the purpose of statutory redundancy pay. If we were referring to statutory pa it owuld be unreasonable for it not to be included.

If your employer is paying contractual redundancy pay to you which is over and above the amount for SRP although it would be fairer to include this, it is discretionary.

If your contract or employee agreement/handbook states that contractual redundancy pay is based on actual weekly pay, and your weekly pay is x including shift pay, then you could argue that this should be included.

Do you have any written agreements with regards to redundancy pay?