No consultation?

Hi

My 21 year old son was made redundant on Thursday. He (and a few others) was told at the end of the working day to pack up their tools and leave as the firm was going into liquidation. There were no meetings and no letters, although they all had their suspicions!

My husband (and 6 other employees) is moving with the bosses to the new company they are starting. Is all this legal and what can I do to help him?

Many thanks

Lyn

It is unfortunately not only legal - it's commonplace.

With regard to your son, given the number of people involved there is little requirement to consult, and in the cases of a firm going into liquidation (even big ones) it's usually a case of "the shutters coming down" being the beginning and end of the consultation. He is still entitled to some redundancy payment (if he qualifies for any) and to notice pay / accrued holiday pay. He should write to the employer / liqidators to claim this if it hasn't been paid. If they acnnot pay it then there is a Government scheme (the Redundancy Payments Scheme) which will pay it although there is a cap on the amount of wages you can claim - if I recall correctly I think it is £380 per week).

What can you do to help your husband? Help him find a new job. His boss is a shyster - albeit one that the law enables to do this - and what he has done once he will do again, if he hasn't already. You can also find out what unions are appropriate for your husband and all his friends and download application forms for them! Your only friend at work is your union! And the same for your son when he finds a new job - first pay packet, join a union.

Many thanks for your reply. My son has since started a new job, so all worked well there.

I do, however, have another couple of questions I would like you to answer, if you would.

As I explained before, my husband is working for the "new" company. He was made redundant on the Thursday and started working at the new place on the following Monday. He got his first week's pay today, cash in hand. He was told that this was to stop him losing his 4 weeks lieu of notice money, which he would if it was on record that he had started a new job straight after being made redundant. He obviously wants to do things properly and wants facts to go to his boss with.

Also, I read that if the firm was in the hands of the Official Reciever, the people who had been made redundant had to ask their boss for their lieu of notice/holiday/redundancy pay, and if they couldn't pay it, then they would need to apply somewhere else for it. The boss says that the woman who used to do the wages is sorting it out with the Official Reciever. Could this be right or is he just being fobbed off?

I am very grateful for your help. This is a minefield.

Lyn

Sorry, I missed out at the end of the first paragraph; Is his boss right and would he lose 4 weeks money, or is his boss just trying to pocket the Tax and NI money for a few weeks?

Oh - this is so dodgy that it is unbelievable. The boss is a Mega -Shyster. Not a word of this is true. I can't even guess - other than fraud - what this guy is up to. If you are legitimately made redundant you can start a new job the next day! No payslips (illegal that), cash in hand, ludicrous excuses... Your husband could come seriously unstuck here. I think a chat with HMRC is advised. If your husabnd is being conned into colluding with breaking the law, it isn't just that he could get into trouble, but it could affect his entitlement to benefits if he is unemployed etc. I believe I said it before - what they do once they will do again.

I couldn't agree more. Now he has the facts, he can confront his boss and demand to be paid legally. Neither of us were comfortable with this situation but I thought I would check it out first. So does he have to claim his redundancy and lieu of notice from somewhere or would it be paid automatically?

Mega-shyster, I love it. Do you know him personally, lol?

Thanks so much for all your help.

Lyn

If any of this is above board then if the firm was put into liquidation and employee dismissed with immediate effect, the first creditors are the employees and the first port of call would be the administrators / official reciever. THis isn't an area that I deal with regularly, but whoever is dealing with the administration has to ensure that any assets of the company hav been declared, liquidised, and given to creditors. If this does not produce enough to pay employees wages, redundancy pay and accrued holidays owed, then the Government scheme steps in. Obviously "the taxpayer" isn't keen to pay if the employer is able to.

It is a legal requirment to provide payslips and these should show the wages earned and list all deductions. To be honest, evenif he gets a payslip, I migh be inclined to check that the employer is registered with HMRC and make sure that I kept payslips / written records of everything. I might also be inclined, if the employer refuses (or even if he doesn't) to provide payslips to write to HMRC, explain what has happened and his concerns, and state that he has accepted £XXX cash in hand reluctantly and with the understanding that tax and NI have been deducted from this amount by the employer - this gives him evidence that he is acting above board so that the HMRC don't come calling on him for undeclared earnings.

The other issue which slightly complicates this is that if your husband was made redundant, but the company operation was transferred to another company, technically this may be a TUPE transfer. In legitimate circumstances, a company may go bust and be bought out by another company, and the workers come as "part of the deal". The advantage to this is that the staff are not made redundant - they simply carry on working for another employer and have all their employment rights and continuity of service remain intact. The employer is obviously trying to avoid this, but that does not mean that he has successfully done so. To ascertain this you really do need some legal advice because the paper trail is important (or the lack of it, and detailed circumstances) - CAB may be able to help you get a free consultation with a lawyer or advise where you could get one.

As I said before, this is the sort of thing that union membership is crucial for, but even if he joined now, your husband would need to serve a qualifying period of membership before he was entitled to legal advice etc from them. That said, if he didn't realise it before he certainly now knows how perilous a workplace can be, and he should join one ASAP to start the clock ticking on his qualifying membership - if he is lucky he might get through it before this guy sacks him or whatever is coming, because I wouldn't touch this employer with a disinfected barge pole.