Job advertised just after being made redundant?

[Speckledeggy]

My aunt has just been made redundant in the last few weeks. She's early sixties so was quite reluctant to leave as she was hoping to stay with the company for the next few years until she retired.

She's just been looking for another job and has seen her job advertised under the guise of a fixed term contract. It has also been combined with another role. She's pretty miffed and annoyed especially as she had clearly stated that she would be flexible in terms of what she did going forward.

She didn't go through a formal redundancy procedure. They just offered her an amount to leave which she haggled over. She was also expected to sign a Compromise Agreement (not sure if she's even signed it yet).

This all seems very wrong to me. Does she have a leg to stand on? Can anyone advise? I'm getting increasingly annoyed with employer's attitude to their staff these days.

Many thanks

If she's signed a compromise agreement then she's waived her claims and the employer can do what they like, which does include immediately readvertising, so that's the first question.

If she hasn't, then she might still have claims for age discrimination or unfair dismissal depending on all the facts. Could she do the new job - does she have the skills or experience to do the other half?

She definitely has the skills and experience.

Not sure if she's signed the Compromise Agreement yet. I'm waiting for her to email me back. My gut feeling is that she has.

TBH, she's better off out of there but as usual it's shoddy treatment which she didn't really deserve. What is it with companies these days?

Doesn't sound like she was made redundant. Sounds like she was bought out of her contract which is different therefore redundancy rules don't apply.

Nothing illegal about it.

No, technically she wasn't made redundant but they led her to believe that her job would be changing/salary would be reduced. She was really worried about it and thought it would be best to negotiate as much money as possible although she really wanted to stay as it would add a few more years to her pension.

She hasn't returned the compromise agreement yet.

If she hasn't returned the compromise agreement get her to talk to her adviser about the change in circumstances and the fact that the job has been readvertised. It sounds like the company wanted her out and thought they could pay her off. It does sound as if she does have a claim for unfair dismissal and the fact that they didn't go through a process but just offered her an agreement is in fact evidence of unfair dismissal (until its signed) as it is unsafe to have these kind of without prejudice or off the record conversations unless the underlying dismissla is fair (redundancy etc).

The fact the job has been readvertised also sounds like very good evidence that the company just wanted to rplace her.

As a result she needs to look at her options with her adviser. It is likely that the fact "her job" has been readvertised will make the price for her signing away her rights under a compromise agreement go up - whatever she haggled over in the past, if she didn't otherwise know about this. IF she doesn't want to sign then she could sue if she's actually left, or she could in thory decide to tell them she's coming back to work and force them to do this properly. If she's got the balls for it its often a good tactic to get the money increased.

Whatever she does however it is worth thinking about whether she is really going to be able to carry on working with this compnay, whether she has the inclination to sue, or whether she just wants to haggle some more. This should all be discussed with her adviser and she should start by explianing what she thinks she wants to achieve before deciding how to play it and whether or not to sign up to the agreement on offer.