Work trying to pull a fast one [Redundancy Payment]

Afty

Hello.

I find myself in a somewhat unpleasant situation at work. Last week (Tuesday) it was announced that "due to the current financial/economic situation" that my work would need to make up to 7 people redundant and everyone else would have to take a 10% pay cut.

Fair enough.

We were split into pools and told if we were in a pool which was at risk, which mine is. I have no problem with this. We wait until this Tuesday to see if we are individually still at risk. Which I am told I am. The final decision will be made on Friday (tomorrow).

About a year ago the company went through a particularly rough time with one of our clients and I put in and extraordinary effort to help resolve the situation. As of then I was promoted to Senior and given a pay rise, this meant that I was put onto a 3 month contract.

Now They are trying to tell me that I am still on a one month contract (so that they can pay me less i assume).

I cannot find a copy of my upgraded contract anywhere, I have moved house twice in the time since and it has gotten lost somewhere along the way. So this morning i asked them to produce their copy of my contract. Which they did.

It's dated in 2005, says I am a Junior Developer and earn £14k a year (even though they currently pay me £25k).

This is already a fairly messy situation, the redundancy process has dragged out so long that people are getting angry. They haven't officially dismissed anyone and could potentially ask me to stay tomorrow. (Which I will hit the roof about if they do).

What should I do? Should I find a no win no fee type lawyer? Am I SOL because there seems to be no contract that states my current situation?

Other points.

The managing director sent an email last night saying that they were going to RECRUIT a new account manager to look after one of our bigger clients. (can you do this if you have told people that they have to go for the company to survive?).

My boss (line manager) has changed twice since my new contract was agreed. The old one has sent me and email saying that he recalls me moving to senior and being put onto 3 months but has no proof.

ihmmy

request to see your personnel file, there should be something in there (hopefully)

PaperPritt

Well i had a big reply but it got eaten by the forum monster. Two quick answers :

The managing director sent an email last night saying that they were going to RECRUIT a new account manager to look after one of our bigger clients. (can you do this if you have told people that they have to go for the company to survive?).

Not only you can do that, it's a very common practice. Get rid of the costly temp, get a cheaper temp.

So this morning i asked them to produce their copy of my contract. Which they did.

No they didn't . Big effin' lie right there. Your contract should be the original agreement + the upgrade. You remenber signing that, right?

Bottom line: If you can keep your job with a 10% cut, good. If not.. well.. they can pretty much do what they want. Yeah i know it sucks, i've been there myself.... many times.

Your best chance is to try to negociate something with them. Also, 14k£ for a junior developper? What the fuck...... I'm no expert but i've a fairly good knowledge of "what you're worth" and that's seriously low.

bowen

That's "In high school doing some perl debugging" pay.

Afty

I live in No-where in Norfolk in England. Pay rates here aren't exactly on par with the rest of the country. ;(

I'm going to make a big fuss about it, i have no problem burning my bridges here as i have plenty of work lined up for when im freelance.

Szechuanosaurus

You can easily prove the invalidity of the contract they produced by comparing it to your pay slips. The problem is, that doesn't conclusively prove that you are on a longer notice period. They could just say 'welp, guess there's no current contract at all then' in which case you would default to the minimum legal notice period:

The statutory minimum notice entitlement ranges from one to twelve weeks as follows (ERA 1996 s.86(1)):

* One week if period of continuous employment is between one month and two years;

* One week for each year of continuous employment between two and 12 years;

* 12 weeks if period of continuous employment is 12 years or more.

Assuming the contract they produced is from when you first started working with the company, then that'd peg your notice period at around 3-4 weeks depending what month you started, unfortunately.

Now, if they did promise 3 months notice period then that could still be legally binding even if neither party can produce a physical contract. In Scotland especially, verbal contracts are in most cases legally binding, and I think you may be afforded similar protection in England, especially if a physical contract did exist (just because no one can find a copy of a contract doesn't mean that contract is now void). However, without clear and conclusive evidence, if it comes down to a fight it'll be hard to win. At least you apparently have a witness in the form of a former employee who was your line manager, so I guess there might be a case to build. The question is, do you really want to bother when your efforts would probably be better focused on finding a new job?

By all means, be stubborn, kick up a shit storm, threaten legal action and hide prawns under the carpet tiles in the manager's office before you leave, but it probably isn't worth turning into an actual legal battle.