What is the official line on Length of time to be worked following redundancy ?

Hi,

My wife has been made redundant from a management position.
Part of an org. restructure in which 3 management posts were created from 4 currently.
Only one of the 4 applicants for the 3 posts was re-employed and the other 3 have been made redundant, despite exemplary records.
She is pursuing this with her union reps.

Her company was bought by another 18 months ago the they were taken over themselves 6 months later.
They are insisting that my wife is not covered under TUPE and that she must work out 3 months Notice finishing on 6th April 2012 – her redundancy date was 14th December.
Her initial contract Notice states Employer 1 week, Employee 1 Month.

What takes precedence for how long someone has to work after being made redundant?
Statutory Redundancy Period, Initial Contract (TUPE) or a unilateral requirement of the new company?
Many Thanks

Jeff T-G

Sorry but I can't give you an absolute answer. Whether she is covered by TUPE depends on the nature of the take-over; but that aside the original contract holds vaild unless it has been changed. her union should be best placed to advise her on this.

Hi SarEl
Many thanks for your post.
The take-over was an outright purchase.
My wife has had no consultation on changes to her terms of employment so this is probably a "unilateral" change on the part of the company.
Union legal staff are now engaged due to some Corporate Governance issue that have arisen during the consultancy process so they can reslove that one as well.

The main question though was where does a redundancy period start in relation to contracted terms.

IE - If the contracted terms are 1 month notice and Statutory Redundancy period is 3 weeks can the company insist that someone works for the 1 month notice or does the Statutory period take precidence?

In the case of my wife - her contract states 1 month, the Statutory Redundancy period 3 weeks, but the company has told her that she must work out her notice of 3 Months which starts from 2nd January through to 2nd April 2012 although she received her official redundancy notification on 14th December.

As I understand it the 14th Dec is the "Effective" date but is the period - 1 month, 3 weeks or 3 months?

Thanks again

Jeff T-G

Contractual terms take precedence over statutory.