Fixed term contract renewal with different FTC staff?

[RealityHasALiberalBias]

A couple of friends of mine at work are coming to the end of their fixed term contracts, which are FTC because they are covering two permanent staff members who are acting up. The two permanent staffers have had their acting up contracts extended, so the work should be there for the FTC people to be extended too. Normally this is what happens in my workplace.

However, they have been told that they, and two other FTC staff will have to reapply for these roles after March, rather than just being extended as normal.

My understanding was that someone in a FTC role has the right to be extended if that role continues. Can employers just replace one FTC staff member with another in the same cover role?

Also, separate but possibly related question: can employers legitimately replace an FTC staff member with a permanent staff member if the permanent staff member has nowhere else to go temporarily (e.g. if they’ve finished one project and are waiting a few months for the next to start)? Doesn’t the FTC staff member have a right to stay in their job?

Hoping someone out there might have some insight into this, as I can’t find clear examples online of whether this breaches FTC legislation.

A FTC employee has the same rights as a permanent employee and cannot be treated less favourably.

The nature of the FTC is that it is designed to come to an end automatically by the date stipulated on the contract, so both employee and employer are clear throughout that it has a finite term.

The FTC employee may be eligible for redundancy if no further work is available, hence they have the same rights as if they were permanent, provided, like perms, they have worked there for >2 years.

If there is continuity of work in that position (for example an ongoing project) at the end of the FTC date, then the employer may offer an extension because it could be beneficial to both sides to just extend (continuity of service on one side and continuity of employment/work experience on the other). In principle the FTC employee has the right to be considered for that role, but the employer cannot exclude other employees from applying for the role - it cuts both ways as all employees have to be treated fairly.

The employer would need to demonstrate how they had made it a level playing field, if 2 or more people were vying for the same position, and to show they hadn't just replaced one person with another, without both having a fair 'crack of the whip' to secure the role.

In reality the nature of FTC working is that it involves specialist skills and if the original FTC employee was embedded in a project team or workgroup for 2 years, then a different applicant is unlikely to match up to their specific expertise on that project in an interview situation, so the original person would get the role, provided they were already performing well. If there were performance issues, then the employer would need to demonstrate they had upheld a fair performance management process giving the FTC a chance to make improvements. ie treated them like a perm employee.

Sorry it's long!.

Thanks daisy. That is sadly not the reality of FTC staff at my workplace. They take them on to avoid having too many permanent staff members, and that’s it. They’re not doing specialist tasks, they’re doing the same thing as the rest of us. Everyone starts as FTC and if they manage to scrape through to four years without a break they get made permanent. It’s a crock.

What if a permanent staff member were just given one of the roles, without it being advertised at all?

Reality sadly you are talking from experience that companies find workarounds and dont act in the spirit of the Law. I've seen it time and again. And the ability to call them on bad behaviour is tough when they hold the power.

Re not advertising, therein lies the rub as they say. A company not acting fairly, it involves the affected employee calling them on their behaviour, gather and present the evidence etc to HR, but they risk being branded the trouble maker and get a bad name with management.

It's a crock. That's the word

Plus not all FTC know their rights, so don't know how best to challenge successfully. They are in the weaker disadvantaged position. The company can manipulate things to obfuscate and make out a role has discontinued and a "different" role emerges which is almost identical.

That's why FTCs should be looking ahead for their next position long before the end of their actual end date, so they don't risk their employment/income falling off the cliff at the end of the contract.

If the FTC person has less than 2 years service there’s not much they can do sadly, same as if they were on a “permanent” contract for less than 2 years. So long as there’s no issues eg discrimination being the reason why the contract wasn’t renewed.

They don’t get the right to be treated as a permanent member of staff til they have 4 years service although as a PP said they may have the right to claim redundancy after 2 years c

Thanks all. Sigh. My workplace is so messed up.

Bakedbeans FTC employees cannot be treated less favourably than permanent staff at any time.

They 'earn' the legal right to be considered permanent if their fixed-term contract lasts for four years or longer.

Yes I know all that daisychain. The point being that staff on a permanent contract wouldn’t have much recourse either if their contracts were terminated if they had less than two years service.