Is there an employment lawyer in the house?

My wife is currently on maternity leave with our second child.

Last week she scheduled a ‘keeping in touch’ day as she is due back to work in August. This should have been an informal get together with her boss to be appraised of the business goings-on over the last 9 months or so.

Instead when she arrived she was summoned into a meeting with HR and informed that her position was at risk of redundancy. She and a colleague both perform the same role, which the business intend to downsize to a single body.
She was told that if she decides to return to work they will both be made redundant and invited to apply for the sole remaining position.

So far, straight forward.

However, in her HR meeting she was told that her colleague had been given the same guidance. Having spoken to him it transpires that is not the case, he was told by their boss that ‘we will be making her an offer when she comes in’.

This indeed they did, telling my wife that if she takes redundancy now, they will throw in her holiday and outstanding sick as a single tax free lump sum.

A few points we’ve picked up:
Prior to taking maternity she worked a 3 day week, thus her current redundancy offer is based on a pro-rata salary of £14k.
However, if she refuses the offer and decides to return to work full time, they will have to offer her redundancy based on her full time salary of £25k if what I’ve read is correct.

Also, given that so far they have only made overtures of redundancy to her and not her colleague, are these grounds for unfair dismissal since it appears they are discriminating against her?

The offer was made a week ago and already they are pressuring for a decision which seems wrong to me.

All in all I’m a bit lost, but having worked here for over a decade (I work at the same company) and knowing how they treat their staff, I smell a rat and think they’re trying to off her on the cheap.

Any sound legal advice greatly received. Have tried CAB, but it seems they don’t have enough staff to even answer the phone these days.

A few points we’ve picked up:
Prior to taking maternity she worked a 3 day week, thus her current redundancy offer is based on a pro-rata salary of £14k.
However, if she refuses the offer and decides to return to work full time, they will have to offer her redundancy based on her full time salary of £25k if what I’ve read is correct.

Of all that is correct.

Then surely it’s a big fat “NO THANKS” to the offer then.

Simple ?

Of all that is correct.

Then surely it’s a big fat “NO THANKS” to the offer then.

Simple ?

Be careful with that one. Statutory redundancy pay is not very much.

Be careful with that one. Statutory redundancy pay is not very much.

and is capped?

she will return to her job which was the job she did before maternity – how can she return to a job/ hours she did not do ?
Was it a short fix for maternity – what does her contract say re hours?

Personally I would ask for the offer in writing and send an e-mail recounting all of the meeting and asking for clarification on a number of points with read and delivery receipts- ie get an admission from them that it actually took place – an absences of a WTF are you talking about is generally considered proof the meeting and account is correct in a trial as it is balance of probabilities not proof

I cannot believe any HR would offer redundancy ONLY to someone on maternity and leave the other person unaffected…..do they want to be sued for victimisation or something?
In redundancy the role is lost and independent objective criteria used to asses the candidates- to offer this to only one and tell the other is dodgy as can be tbh as they should ask everyone to volunteer or apply. They cannot pre select who applies for the job or redundancy – well they can if the restructure and merge roles but that does not appear to be the case here. Given pregnancy I assume a case for victimisation would be the basis of the claim. I am unsure how the company would defend this TBH

That said if they want her gone they want her gone so i would try and get a smoking bullet [ hence the e-mail but dont mention victimisation in it but ask if say everyone has been offered this?] and negotiate hard for the best you can get or fight them

i doubt they will keep the job 😥

Sorry about that

Union rep not a lawyer

To clarify a few points:
Her job is assistant manager, her colleagues job is analyst.
She has worked part time (Mon to Weds 9-5) since our first child 3 years ago, which is reflected in her contract.

The business intend to end both roles (assistant manager and analyst) and create a single role to replace.

She managed to get hold of ACAS who have, as you suggest Junkyard, told her to get HR to put everything in writing and provide answers about their conduct thus far.

To be frank I think she’s done with the place anyway, but we want to make sure she’s getting a fair deal or wring as much out of the bastards as possible (delete as you feel appropriate).

with combining the role they can “ringfence” only one of them to it is it si say 70 % analyst and 30 % asst manager

Generally comapnies are very wary of messing with those on maternity IME

I would write it like you are confused and say when you said X what exactly did this mean etc

Ask if anyone else has been offered the same or better terms etc

PS

they will throw in her holiday and outstanding sick as a single tax free lump sum.

That is basically what they have to do anyway but you save a bit on tax bit only the holiday bit and sick pay -it also removes NI which the company has to pay as well so they would actually save money doing this !! I am not sure they can actually legally do this iirc we tried to do this but it is fraud or some such. Not 100% sure on this but recall there was a reason it could not be done.
Given where we are in the year would it not be tax free anyway?

Cheers, will sit down and draw up an email tonight. I should add at this point that our employer has a notoriously poor track record when it comes to conduct in these situations.

Chief of my issues are that only on my wife’s instigation of a meeting did the notify her of redundancy (ACAS suggests they should have gone out of their way to keep her informed and failure to do so could count as unfair dismissal) and that from verbal evidence so far, they seem to have said to her colleague ‘we going to make her an offer to leave, you won’t be affected.’

Edit: re the tax free, yes I think you are right, since the payout will be well below her yearly allowance anyway.

Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve cut and pasted the key bits of this to a friend of mine who is a (very good) employment lawyer. He’s not a member of Planet Singletrack but is a very keen mountain biker (so he must be ok then 🙂 ). He’s obviously always stacked for time, but if and when he responds I’ll let you know. In the meantime I’m no lawyer (never stopped me yet) but it certainly smells fishy to me. Hope it all works out!

Don’t mind at all, thanks all for the help so far everyone.

Best of luck

My wife got within 3 days of an industrial tribunal.

My advice based on this is that they are a last resort. Even if you are in the right and have good union backing they are a pain and nothing is guaranteed

So negotiate firmly. But don’t rely on the law coming as a shining knight.

yes dont rely on the law but remember they generally want to settle – they will often just have insurance and it is down to the insurance co – as there is a cost to the defence anyway.
Imagine it £3k to defend and £3k redundancy so they offer you £5 k or more if they fear they will loose as you could get a fair whack tbh.

From this offer at present you will loose some NI and possibly tax.
You also appear to have a case – they will know all of this too.

Imagine it £3k to defend and £3k redundancy so they offer you £5 k or more if they fear they will loose as you could get a fair whack tbh.

Also bear in mind that if you can demonstrate discrimination the award is going to be expensive for the company (unless the law has changed it’s an unlimited award as a top limit). Mrs Supertwisted could well be in for a long paid for summer holiday.

Aye if they stupidily fess up over that HR meeting I dont think they want to go to court personally

If you go down a tribunal route it’ll make sense to go for sex discrimination, better payouts that way. However as others havs said you’ll be better off with a good settlement. Make them realise you won’t roll over and know you have a potential case.

Thanks all, have spent this evening drafting an email asking for clarification on some of the key points that they need to address.

I guess they will either shoot themselves in the foot, in which case I’ll get ACAS involved or they will explain their way out of it somehow.

Will keep you posted either way.

Hopefully not too late on this one – but IIRC, A woman made redundant on maternity leave has to be offered any suitable alternative vacancy if the employer has one, without having to apply for it… might be worth looking into!