Forced move in work?

[whackamole]

Can anyone help? I have posted this in Chat but was advised might get some more specialised info here.

DH has just been told his work is relocating, about 40 miles away. He doesn't drive, and on £9k a year (hours reduced a couple of years ago) even if we had a car we wouldn't be able to afford the petrol to get him there and back every day.

Not to mention we were feeling so pleased we had sorted out me going back to work - he does 10-3.30 daily, I do 5-8 Mon-Fri then Saturdays meaning no childcare to pay for and both of us earning.

Don't know what the fuck to do now. Unlikely he will be able to get a job with similar hours. He could be a SAHD and I could pick up full time hours I suppose.

I just hope they make him redundant as we have insurance on both the mortgage and a personal loan of his which would at least take the pressure off. Pretty sure they won't though.

Fuck.

The distance is a rough estimate, Liverpool to Preston, I don't know if he has been told where the new office will be he just called to give me the bare bones.

I don't think if he takes voluntary redundancy we an use our insurance. Which will really piss me off.

Erm....he has worked for them for about 5 years, 2ish years ago they reduced his hours from 37.5 to 25. Over five days though so we couldn't reduce the childcare we needed.

TIA.

(Just taking the children to pre-school, will be back soon. Not ignoring!)

What does his contract say about relocation/mobility?

It sounds like a possible redundancy situation to me, if his personal circumstances are such that the new location would be impossible for him, but if you could post what his contract says that would be great.

If it is a redundancy situation, it wouldn't be voluntary.

I'll have to get back to you about the relocation thing. Pretty sure they wouldn't have considered 40 miles reasonable as he is a clerical worker, nothing they couldn't replace in about 10 minutes.

My work is relocating about 50 miles away, we have a relocation clause in our contracts which means we have to relocate but I know the law says something (can't remember what exactly) about not being able to relocate over x amount of miles/minutes. We have been offered voluntary redundancy but this isn't happening for another 2 years so gives people time to look at least. Check his contract and then tell him to talk to his boss to find out more.

He's just got home and his department is completely redundant, so at least we now know he will be getting that! The thing I am worrying about now, is that they say the proposed date of redundancies is end of August, but the building is still going to be open till end of the year. His start date was 10th December, so they can get away only paying him 4 weeks redundancy pay, but they have mentioned keeping him on till the end of the year. Till 9th Dec probably so they still don't have to pay him the extra week!

Actually though, I feel a bit more positive knowing that there is no choices. At least we can claim on the insurance for a year.