Should I go to tribunel?

[sparklingsky]

I am heavily pg and being consulted about redundancy. They have already decided to delete my job. My concern is whether they have/are genuinely considering me for other jobs. I haven't been considered for my old job. Someone who did it on a temp basis was slotted in, a week after I got my at risk letter. This shocked me. (They are cheaper, and not pg or due to go on ML).

It's being handled badly - my manager left me waiting for an hour for a meeting that she didn't turn up to. She arranged to meet me again to discuss my written concerns (after raising verbally twice) - and then conducting the meeting like a disciplinary.

I have taken advice from different sources and all have said I have grounds for tribunel. Tbh I understand why my post has gone. It's the treatment since the at risk letter that I object to.

I would rather not go down the ET route. But will if I have to. I would be happier to have my notice period and maternity leave (which is 6 weeks pay). That way my redundancy (which isn't great) would allow me to look for another job when the baby is old enough to go to childcare.

Any advice? Am I asking too much? I am wondering whether I should lodge a formal grievance now.

Flowery will no doubt advise, but I checked this at a union meeting last week with regard to something similar, and they told me you can't be made redundant whilst pg as special rules apply.

Also regardless of pg you can't made redundant unless your job is disappearing. The very fact that they have re-hired immediately in this case makes them look very discriminatory indeed, like they are trying to avoid keeping you on because you are pg.

I think you could probably do them for sex discrimination and you might be interested to know that the liability for that is uncapped, so the payout could be quite steep for them.

But do get professional advice.

No special rules apply during pregnancy, no. As long as the pregnancy isn't all or part of the reason for the redundancy it's irrelevant.

You say you understand why your post has gone, but you also say a temp is now doing your old job.

Is your job redundant or not? What are the grounds you believe you have? Is it because you don't think the redundancy is genuine, or because there is another post available that they are not considering you for, or something else?

You say it's the 'treatment' since the letter that you object to, can you be more specific about what illegal treatment you feel you have been subject to?

Direct.gov

Redundancy or dismissal during maternity leave
It is automatically unfair and automatic sex discrimination for your employer to select you for redundancy or dismiss you for a reason connected with:
maternity leave
birth or pregnancy
paternity leave
parental leave
time off for dependants
Your employer can make you redundant while you are on maternity leave if they can fairly justify their choice. For example, your employer might close the section of their business that you normally work in and make all employees in that section redundant. Then your employer can make you redundant as well.
However, if your employer makes staff cuts across the company, they cannot make you redundant because you are on or are about to take maternity leave.
If you are made redundant whilst on Statutory Maternity Leave then you have special rights. You have the right to be offered any suitable alternative job in the company. This is even if there are other employees that might be more suitable for the job. If you are offered a new job, you are still entitled to the four-week trial period, which should start when you return from Statutory Maternity Leave.
If you are made redundant or dismissed during your Statutory Maternity Leave your employer must give you a written statement explaining the reasons for their decision. You should receive your normal notice period or pay in lieu of notice and redundancy pay, if you are entitled to receive them.

HTH

That's why we need you, flowery!

But Union have obv told me the wrong thing, I think. Will get back to them.

Actually that does sound similar to what the union mentioned in the meeting.

As long as pregnancy isn't the reason for the redundancy, pregnant employees should be treated exactly like everyone else.

If it's during maternity leave, it's fine to include women in that situation in a redundancy situation, the only difference being if her job is redundant during her mat leave and there is a suitable alternative vacancy available, she must be offered it without having to compete with others.

Sparkling,

Can you explain more. It sounds to me as if you were doing one job originally but have since been moved (promoted?) onto another job and that if there were no redundancy you would carry on doing your new job right through to OML and when you returned. The job you were doing before your change is now being filled by someone who was hired as a temp but has been offered it on a permanent basis. And the job you currently have has been made redundant?

If the person doing the job on a temp basis is new to the firm then it does sound as if they should have considered you for the old role, given that you would obviously have been suitable for it and they should not be hiring people at the same time as making others redundant (although this in itself is NOT illegal and does not in isolation = unfair treatment). If you received a payrise and new job title when you moved from old role to new they could argue that the old job was no longer considered suitable or applicable to your current competencies and skills. You say that the temp is much cheaper which suggests that this may be an argument they would use. If someone is earning £15k and does really well and gets payrises and is then promoted to a new role and ends up on £20k, then they could argue that a basic role of £15k is not a suitable alternative role to consider offering you.

If the temp has simply transferred from elsewhere in the business and was already a permanent employee then the employers could fairly sensibly argue that they are simply slotting their staff into the appropriate roles and you had already 'moved on' from that type of work.

It would, by the way, potentially be illegal for them to give you back the old role simply on the grounds that you had it before and therefore have first dibs on it by dint of length of service or seniority in the firm - this would be potentially be indirect age discrimination.

BUT everything hinges on the exact circumstances of what is going on. If you are saying that you were moved to a diffeent role because you were PG (and against your wishes) and that this was possibly done in the light of their knowledge that the role may potentially be made redundant at some stage, then that would be totally different. Likewise if you believe that the mgmt have not considered you for the previous role only because you are PG then again you may have grounds for complaint. BUT the devil is in the detail and you would need to explain more of the circs for us to have a better idea of what is going on..

Thanks everyone. I have been doing my current (soon to be deleted) post (2) for 16 months. There was a freeze on advertising externally for posts when I left it. One of my team was slotted in to my previous post (1) (having not been chosen for interview for it when I was appointed). I was shocked that both of us were not invited to interview competitively for the post, when our manager knew she would be having to deleted my post(2). Instead she slotted in someone who hadn't been considered capable previously. I accept that since doing the job she may have proven herself. My manager's response is simply that because she was currently working at that level, she gets to be slotted in. I don't get considered. (The old post is higher in the structure than my current one, but I am on a higher salary. I fulfilled the same full time job (1) in part-time hours, and everyone seemed satisfied with outcomes. So the salary isn't really an issue what gets taken out of the bugdet is less than my competitor earns).

I am 15-20 years younger than my peers and one of only 2 who work part-time. Two managers have said that the cheapest people will be made redundant first. (My redundancy works out as less than my peers).

I think the redundancy is genuine - public sector cuts. But I cannot understand why I would not be allowed to competitively interview for the other post I did 16 months ago. All other people at that level seem to have had to interview for their own jobs...

I am also increasingly angered by the poor management of the situation. Misinformation about entitlements, not turning up to meetings my manager arranged, treating polite, depersonalised written responses to consultation re selection for redundancy as though I have done something wrong. (Being told by my line manager that she is unhappy, let down, trust has been broken by asking [challenging] questions etc). Being invited for an informal coffee/catch up when actually it is a formal meeting in her manager's office. This effectively removed my chance to get someone to go with me. I am not saying that poor management=discrimination. But it does feel like power games to intimidate me.

Plus my manager has repeatedly cancelled management meetings prior to my at risk letter. So I haven't had one since I told her I was pg. Co-incidence? The other thing is that she told me months ago to stop doing part of my job and hand it over to the team that the person doing my old job now manages. (So I commission rather than deliver). I now realise that she has been winding down my work in slight ways for months. I thought she was just too busy to look at this with me and I was trying to be supportive/understnding with all the managment meeting cancellations. I hadn't been able to address this with her in anything other than quick exchanges.

This is a 14 year career that is being ended. There is limited chance of getting another post elsewhere from what I can see. Everwhere is facing the same cuts. Does this all sound unfortunate - or does it stink?

As I understand it you left post 1 16 months ago to take up post 2 which is now being deleted. If the person who has slotted in to post 1 took it up 16 months ago it would be completely wrong for the employer to interview you both competitively for your old job. Indeed, if you were given your old job back on the same terms as the person currently doing it and she was made redundant she would have an excellent case for unfair dismissal. The employer MUST make the post redundant, not the person.

Being interviewed for your own job is different. If there are, say, 10 people doing similar jobs and they want to get rid of 4 of them that is valid and still counts as redundancy provided they can show that the procedure used to select the 4 is fair. What they cannot do is get rid of 5 of them and bring someone else in to fill one of the posts. That is not a valid redundancy.

So, unless I've misunderstood the situation, I'm afraid you need to forget about your old job. Regardless of how much better you are than the person currently doing it, your employer cannot make her redundant and give you her job.

Reading through your other points, there has certainly been some poor management here. Whether this is enough to justify a claim of unfair dismissal is difficult to say without a lot more information.

Am very glad you posted with the extra info because you may well have a case, but not primarily for the reasons you think.

You may have a case for indirect sex discrimination and indirect age discrimination if indeed you can find evidence that the primary selection criteria for redundancy is 'who is cheapest to get rid of?' - this will proportionally disaffect part-time (women) and those at the lower salary levels (younger staff). This in itself looks awful if it is shown to be the primary selection tool (given that you are public sector and it is not a case of using this selection criteria because the business might otherwise go under or something like that). Then if you have this as a starting point, the fact that you were not considered for the role could be taken into account as is the fact that you feel you have been sidelined since your PG was announced. Together, this then starts to look more awkward for them to explain away.

Do you have any evidence other than hearsay about the selection criteria? In isolation your other points do not (IMHO) themselves amount to enough evidence to support a complaint.

I have been formally told that no selection criteria has been used to make the decision as I am a single specialist.

I can't apply for other specialist posts (because I don't have those specialisms). And it is those people who want to go - but aren't being permitted as they are too expensive (at least that's what we all understand).

Re the other post - I realise that I didn't add that she had it on a temporary basis until 1-2 weeks after I was told about my post being deleted. She had someone acting up in her previous post (who has said she may not return from her m/l, and this person also has another previous post which is currently empty - they were both acting up temporarily). So I assumed that everyone could have just returned to their previous permanent posts - if I had been successful at interview. Thinking it through, this way they lose two posts because at the other end they will leave it empty..

I don't have any minutes that my line manager asked me to stop delivering and to commission instead. And on two recent occasions she has retracted what she has said verbally and explained it as "I can understand that this is stressful for you, and when people are stressed they misunderstand things. You have misunderstood what I said". I didn't. (I took personal minutes) She didn't plan what she was saying and def seemed to be winging it. Colleagues have commented that because I am known for being pleasant and reasonable (and pg) it is possible that managers just thought I would leave quietly.

Yes, the "who is cheapest to get rid of" comment could provide the beginnings of a case but the emphasis is on "could". I am not convinced that would make a case on its own. And you would have to prove that this was indeed the approach taken.

However, I remain of the view that refusing to consider making someone else redundant so you could do her job does not give you cause for complaint. It would be different if the job was currently vacant (or became vacant after the redundancies were announced) and they then moved someone into the job without considering you. But if I understand you correctly the person doing this job took over from you around 16 months ago. If that is the case your employer's refusal to consider moving you back to your old job is absolutely correct.

Sorry - cross posted.

If they have someone acting up in your old post that may put a different complexion on things. If she could return to her previous position on the same terms as she is getting for filling your old position you may have an argument that your employer has failed to explore the possible alternatives to redundancy properly.

Yes prh that is the case. The only issue might be a drop in salary to return to the previous post. But the savings made on my salary (as I did that post part time) would more than meet any drop, and could be salary protected for three years.

I'll stick with "may have an argument". A lot depends on the details but it may be worth trying if you want to go to tribunal. An even better case would be if there are vacancies which are not being abolished and they haven't discussed with you the possibility that you could move to one of those roles.