Business unit in redundancy consultation

Hi all,

9 employees in a finance business unit (including myself) have recently been put in redundancy consultation. We are employees of company 'X'. The proposed reason for this is that our roles can all be absorbed by a larger finance business unit of company 'X' in another location. The employees of the larger unit are not in any consultation process, as far as I am aware.

Our roles are not being made redundant per se, they will just be covered in the workload of other employees in a different location. It seems fairer to me that rather than redundancy be proposed for all workers in one location, all employees who work in the same department should have do undergo the same process and redundancies follow based on other criteria (ie: who can best do the job).

Ultimately, I and few of my 8 colleagues would relocate to the larger business unit, but we wish to be treated fairly and have the option. Also, should this extra consultation take more time then that would be welcomed, especially in a difficult job market.

Any helpful response would be appreciated.

Many thanks
GJC

Sorry, I actually meant would not relocate to the larger business unit.

I disagree with you I'm afraid. It's perfectly fair to decide to completely shut down a unit or department in one location without involving employees in another location (which is unaffected) in the process. Your employer has made a valid business decision that they don't need finance people in your location. They do need finance people in the other location, so they don't need to involve those employees in the process.

If you think about it, if your employer did as you suggest, the result could be someone in the other location being made redundant unfairly. Redundancy is only genuine if the job in question isn't needed any more, so making someone currently doing a job that is still needed redundant just to put someone else in that job would be unlikely to be fair.

I know it doesn't seem fair at the moment, but I think it's a reasonable business decision not to include the other department based on what you are saying, and if you wouldn't accept relocation anyway, you are not losing anything as a result, other than maybe a week or two extra consultation.

It does make sense when you put it like that. Thanks.