Wife being on Maternity leave being made redundant

Hello I wonder if anyone can help me please.

My wife is on her maternity leave at the moment. The company she works for has announced redundancies, and due the larger numbers involved, 26 people in the London office they are following a consultation process.

My wife is and her colleague have been told that they are at risk, and that either on of them will be made redundant. The consultation process has not started yet.

They have sent an email to all employees listing the head count losses in each dept. My question is, how can they already decide were the losses will be if they have not finished the consultation process.

As my wife works in a facilities dept, and her colleague is a man, she thinks that they may use this fact against her.

At present, her line manger has apparently taken up all of my wife's work, while she has been on maternity leave. it has not been shared out.

The selection criteria the company has stated they will be using is based on performance and disciplinary, over the last 3 years, my wife has exceeded in her appraisals, her only marks against her have come this year, during here pregnancy, and while we were dealing with a diagnosis of down syndromes baby. The stress on my wife at the time was immense. She had been pulled up by her line manger over time off she took, even though she pointed out this was all pregnancy related.

My wife's worry is that part of the selection criteria includes her line manager assessing her against performance, skill sets and appraisals, even though she is already biased against her.

Is there any advice you can give us that we can put to the HR dept?

Hi

I am sorry to hear about your wife's situation. It must be a very stressful time for you both and hope I can help.

The first step that employers should make is to announce the proposed redundancies to the workforce. Collective consultation follows this and should cover ways to avoid a redundancy situation, and how to keep the number of dismissals to a minimum.

If your wife is selected for redundancy for any reason which is associated with maternity and pregnancy a subsequent dismissal would be automatically unfair in an Employment Tribunal. The employer should not apply any discriminatory selection criteria including absences related to pregnancy illness.

Even though your wife is on maternity leave, she is still entitled to be consulted individually. At the consultation meetings, she will have the opportunity to question the selection pool, criteria etc. As an employee on maternity leave, her employer must give her first refusal of any available roles as an alternative to redundancy.

If the redundancy dismissal takes place, she will have the right to appeal. If she feels that the selection was unfair or discriminatory or the right process isn't followed, she should appeal.

Hello again,

We've had an update now.

Her colleague on the consultation committee has just contact me, and the company has now agreed that there will be redundancies.

The company has said the trigger for this is due to a fall in revenue from sales. The selection criteria has been agreed. These are; PMA 2008, Disciplinary record, performance in job, Skills / knowledge / experience. Understanding of & exposure to the wider business. Unfortunately, my wife’s colleague was not able to put forward a request to use PMA (performance management Assessment ) over a 3 year period. She has not been contacted by HR for an individual consultation.

Over the last year, a new line manger was employed, who has taken over a lot of work that my wife did, and has now taken on all her work while she is on maternity leave.

Thanks for the reply, and the help and advice you have given.