I take it you're under 41?

not much you can do really other than give them only the bare minimum of effort before you leave

If they're offering the legal minimum, then I think you're ****ed.

if that's all their offering and it's certain your going, time to start 'archiving' all those important procedures and depositing fish paste down the back of radiators 😉

Slash and burn discreetly, disrupt as much as you can before you go. I bet the Directors arent going therefore I think retribution is in order.

I'm 46 actually

How come the government have allowed this to happen? I'm told that in Europe it's a very different story!

I'm 46 actually

Well you're entitled to 1.5 week's pay for every completed year over 41 with 1 week for the years under the age of 41

work it out here
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/employment-legislation/employment-guidance/page33683.html

I think it's the £350 per week that's the issue. The BERR calculator gives £5,075.

I thought higher payments for older employees were age dicrimination?

Our company pays out the same multiplier for all ages

as long as it's over the legal minimum it doesn't matter

djglover - Member

I thought higher payments for older employees were age dicrimination?

Our company pays out the same multiplier for all ages

In which case, they're paying [i]above[/i] the legal minimum for at least some employees.

I've heard that colleagues in Germany and France are getting one month per year worked - that's more than 10 times what I'm being offered.
I'm now thinking that because it's cost the company so much to make these guys redundant, that they're off-setting their loss by giving the UK guys the minimum. Very unjust!

Union?

Tyger - that is the result of us having the weakest legal protection for workers in Europe. You know who to blame

Union! 😆

Sorry did I laugh out loud? They're the clowns who have been bankrolling the Labour party for years, oh the irony!!!

Bad news about your job though, hope it works out for you.

You know who to blame

If they offer me my three months notice as a lump sum is that tax free?

You're allowed up to £30k tax free as a severance payment.

LOL £30k - that would be nice!

Aracer - no - thatcher the milk snatcher. Her greatest achievement in making the british workforce the cheapest and easiest to sack in europe. Labour have improved the position slightly but have been too scared of the CBI and the tory press to do much.

If there is a choice for a multinational of making workforce redundant in UK or in the rest of Europe the UK jobs will go first.

TJ - how many years have Liebour had to put it right?

tyger - you will be entitled to 1.5 weeks pay per year worked when over age of 42. The redundancy payment may well be capped though, often at £7000 or 20 weeks @£350. Payment 'in lieu' of notice is normally taxed, but the 'redundancy' payment is usually not.

Not an HR specialist, unfortunately a manager who has had to dish out redundancy to 6 of my team in the last 6 months -(

Obviously 12 years is totally insufficient time for them to actually do anything if they wanted to 🙄
[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/04/redundancy-pay ]Doesn't look like they're that keen to change it.[/url]

So let me get this straight - Labour have been in power for years knowing about this but were 'too scared' to do anything about it??

How come this isn't hitting the headlines? It's a scandal

Thats my take on it - too scared of the slating they would get from the tory press. Hence we have the worst workers rights in the EU.

Germany has far more workers rights from representation on the board to protection from redundancy. They work less hours per week, get paid more AND are more productive.

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hey! none of that negative talk mister. it's the low level of red tape and flexible labour conditions that have helped make britain the economic powerhouse it is today. err...

representation on the board

They work less hours per week

TJ - again your comments make me laugh as a co owner of an international business the remark we are have the the most lapse laws in Europe to sack employees are no doubt from your experience of spending too much time on google. In real life it is very hard to dismiss an employee and most companies have to seek expensive legal advice to do so or send in a heavy 😀

Yes countries like Germany changed with the times as problems happened - they saw the issues and paid companies compensation to keep workers in employment on shorter working weeks and hours rather than letting them lose their jobs completely resulting in the government paying them for not working all together and losing out on employees taxation and NI and paying them for not actually working.. Something our Jurassic bosses should have realised....

Germany has far more workers rights from representation on the board to protection from redundancy. They work less hours per week, get paid more AND are more productive.

...and has have achieved a consistently (and significantly) higher unemployment rate than the UK over a prolonged period.

I have some of our German employees reporting to me
my experience over the last 5 years or so of doing it is - the Germans are pretty much impossible to dismiss, whereas in the UK it's reasonably easy as long as the rules are adhered to.

european employment market will begin to change, just takes longer as laws allow firms to be less flexible when it comes to hiring and firing....

here in germany, when a firm goes into 'pleite' (bankrupt) the employees of the firm get full pay for three months and do not show up as being unemployed. the money used to pay them for going to the office and drinking coffee for three months comes from all the other firms that are still going. the (almost) father-in-law must pay a premiun to cover the (non)employment of his new son-in-law.

a saftey net system designed incase someone comes in wanting to buy the firm. despite the fact this isn't going to happen everyone still gets paid.

it is also hard to get rid of workers for whatever reason. because of this many employers are more reluctant to take people on as permanent staff.

the 'finanz krise' is already hitting here in germany but it's full effect will take longer to be felt but will also take longer to recover due to the inflexibility of the workforce. i think much the same (prehaps more-so) can be said for france.

uplink, you in deutschland?

alpin - no I'm based in the UK but look after a team based in Frankfurt as well as a UK team

Moda - actually its from real world experience - both as a union rep and from running a multimillion pound business. Its very easy to sack someone in Britain - far easier than in the rest of Europe.

UK management is often very poor as well which is why they find it hard to sack people. It is very straightforward if you know what you are doing.

tyger - Every little helps. I got 4 weeks notice, no pay off and was taxed on the 4 weeks pay that I got.

I have just gone throught he Job Seekers Allowance claim website. It is quite interesting how they word the questions:

'Do you need language assistance?' - No, I am fluent in Arabic! Surely you mean 'Do you need assistance with English?'

'Have you been Dismissed, Laid Off or left worek volunterily?' - Where is Made Redundent on that list? (yes, I do understand what laid off means but it is not a term I have heard since the 1980's)

I am trying to train myself to say "am I being singled out because I am black?" with a completely straight face if I get laid off. I figure it's got to be pretty funny for at least 4 seconds, and [i]might[/i] get me a massive pay-off for race discrimination.

Right, lets see...back in 1998 or 9, can't quite remember, I was made redundant by a UK based multinational (you'd all have heard of them). Thankfully, because they'd grown up in the UK, the union had grown with them. Yes, there were spats here and there, but the company got by and did very well with that healthy level of mistrust between the union and the management.

Thanks to a strong union negotiated payout system (company had announced redundancies and negotiated with the union), I got (having been there for around 2 and a half years), 3 months pay (my notice period), some statutory redundancy (pish all really) and some other "sorry-we're-sacking-you" payout. It worked out to be between eight and a half and nine grand for two and a half years service. And I was able to walk out that day. "need me to sign anything, when can I go?, can I go now?, really?"

I would always have been a union supporter anyway but that little experience was a wee lesson in how important it is to have a strong workers representation. And I wasn't even a member of the union!!

BD - a friend has just got the axe from A&O. He's Welsh. Do you think that line could work for him?

Tyger - that is the result of us having the weakest legal protection for workers in Europe.

That has advantages and disadvantages. Ask Sarkozy about it. He (and a great number of French businessmen) think that the French laws that protect the workforce are damaging their economy. It's apparently virtually impossible to be fired in France so you can get away with doing bugger all and being a liability to the company without any threat of recrimination.

Not a great recipe for productivity is it?

I was made redundent a day after my 40th birthday. Do you think I could claim ageism?

Like TJ said, if you aren't a member of a Union you are just one tiny voice, if you are a member of a Union then you are millions of voices.

Basically, its the legal minimum for a reason, you just have to bend over and take it. If you had joined a union years ago they could have fought this, however the horse has bolted so its a bit late to be looking at the door and its condition.

Yes its shit 🙁