Redundancy Prioritising

Hi

When it comes to redundancy, do I, as a British Citizen, have any priority over someone who is employed by my company, from overseas, either in the EU or outside e.g. South Africa?

Also, what exactly is the time frame after which an employer can refill my position, having made my position redundant?

Thanks

Hi,

To clarify my original question further.

My company employees a number of British Citizens, resident in the UK, to work in the UK. My company also employs a number of personnel from overseas, who are resident overseas or are on work permits and resident in the UK, either from within the EU or outside of the EU. They fly some of them in from overseas, at which point they carry out a tour of duty and then fly them back to their point of origin and country of domicile, once their tour of duty is completed. They are not UK residents. Some, as far as I know, are employed through an external agency and are not on the same salary scale as their British citizen counterparts and I am not certain if they pay UK national insurance.

Do these foreign personnel enjoy equal rights, when it comes to redundancy, with their UK citizen counterparts.

I would be very interested in the answer.

Regards

In answer to your original question, no. In a redundancy pool situation it would illegal to use nationality as a selection criteria. In other words if you have two people doing the same or similar jobs, with the same scores on performance, disciplinary, attendance, skills and experience, you can't then make one redundant because he/she is not British.

However your situation sounds complicated and I wouldn't want to comment on it specifically without knowing all the ins and outs of the situation in terms of the status of your colleagues and what the proposal was going forward.

But in a very general sense, all else being equal, nationality isn't a reasonable selection criteria, no.

Thanks. I guess the main point was that some of our workforce fly in to the UK to work and fly home to their country of origin at the end of a 2 week stint of work. And repeat the process again, working for two weeks, with two weeks back in their home country, so on and so forth. They are not resident in the UK and work offshore in UK waters when they do work. They are hired via an agency based overseas. Some are EU nationals and resident in their home country and some are reside and are from countries outside of the EU, but not in the UK.

I cant explain it any more clearly than that, I am sorry. However I would say that it is the offshore oil industry that I am employed in.

Regards