Advice on termination of employment or zero hours contract.

Morning Royston,

To start off a company has no legal right to alter someone’s contract to such an extent. The only reason they are doing so is make it easier for them to lay off for extended periods of time.

Under no circumstances should your Mum sign the change to contract terms. It’s not because she should ‘take them to the cleaners’ but to actually protect her current terms and conditions of employment and her length of service. Theoretically she could even lose out on future annual leave.

She should have no doubt that the employers are trying to pull a fast one for whatever reason.

Im sure that your Mum would work with them on a workable solution if they are struggling like unpaid leave, part time furlough scheme, but basically giving up her employment rights, holiday pay and potential redundancy package shouldn’t be one of them.

*Note - Although I’m not a qualified HR expert, I work and have worked very closely with HR departments due to leading operations at various organisations, so I am pretty experienced in dealing with Employment law.

The best person to get Qualified advice on here is however Chef Tyke who is a leading employment lawyer at probably Yorkshire’s most prominent law firm.

 

Some good advice above, use the redundancy calculator on HMRC website to work out what she would be due to. If you need any advice on the payments drop me a pm, it's what l do for a living.

 

That’s still no reason to attempt to hoodwink someone out of their employment rights.

Unprecedented times don’t change the law, which is there to protect every one of us actually working.

That post couldn’t be more Brexit Tory if you tried.

 

This is the best option that protects the mum’s contract and shows willingness to help the business at a difficult time. Signing a zero hours contract is the absolute worst option (infact I wouldn’t even consider it as an option).

 

My advice would be for your Mum to take specialist advice from the CAB initially and perhaps from an employment law solicitor.

Employment law is quite complex and can be misinterpreted unless one knows what they are talking about so tread carefully.

 

In all fairness mate, this is as cut and dried as you can get.

They cannot do what they are attempting to do.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with your first sentence, in terms of the second, they can if she let’s them. They are legally within their rights to offer her a zero hour contract or make her redundant if she turns it down. The point there is that she should obviously wait and be made redundant, if they really are getting rid of her, as the second she signs the contract they could just never give her another hour’s work again. What they are suggesting is perfectly legal, unfortunately, but morally bankrupt.

 

You are right so I’m not going to argue, I was trying to point out the legalities of it more than what her potential decision would/could be.

If she knows legally they can’t do what they are suggesting without her prior agreement and what the consequence of doing so will be (basically p1ssing 15 years service away), then it really shouldn’t be a decision anyway.

 

To be fair to Plobby mate I think he's just seeing it from a business owner's perspective and applying the good intentions I assume he would have if faced with a similar situation. Unfortunately not everybody runs a business with their employees' best interests and I agree that the OP's mum needs to protect herself from being potentially shafted.

 

It seems to me that the employer here is attempting to change the terms and conditions of the employee's contract of employment. There is a case here I believe for compensation for altering the T's & C's.

I had a not too dissimilar experience when my employer (a high street bank) wanted to change my T's & C's - notably changing my office location and hence trying to deprive me of mileage expenses running into hundreds of pounds per month...... the mention of changing T's & C's unilaterally made them think again....

Royston Tyke - please impress upon your mum the need to not sign anything at all, certainly not until you/she have had professional advice

 

If there were a dislike button on here I'd have clicked it so hard my mouse would be in pieces.

 

Hmm not sure, when you use terms like ‘screwing the business out of everything you can get’ is what employers should be thinking.

Remember, Redundancy isn’t the businesses money, it’s money accrued by the individual as a protection and a right for staying loyal to the respective company.

It’s the employees money, and the business have no right to take that away, well in such a way as this anyway.

As an employer, I think it’s important and your duty to look after your employees. The laws are there to stop shady organisations treating their employees like 3rd world sweatshop workers.

No one with a modicum of understanding how employment law works should stick up for what the business is trying to do to Royston’s mum, it’s a) Unethical but more importantly b) illegal.

 

I it's awful isn't it, it's not like any company has screwed it's workforce is it. What a world indeed.

 

You're right that it is pretty black and white in this situation but I would always advise caution and taking expert legal advice. While it is true that a contract of employment is legally binding the other options might be even worse if circumstances have changed so much that they can no longer honour the original contract.

It might be the case that a new contract is the only alternative to redundancy.

I'm not taking sides here, just advising that proper advice should be taken.

Not all employers are good but equally not all employers are ***** either.

 

^^^ This in spades.

 

So she should let the business screw her!?

 

Like Terry, I’ve spent many years working with Solicitors over HR issues, and would reiterate what he has said, get Mum to get specific advise to her case. I’m often asked advise by friends and whilst I will try to gently advise them of my opinion, I never give them hard fast advise and tell them to go to either ACAS(you just ring them), CAB or a Solicitor.

 

I would agree without knowing all the facts it can look like this is the objective which is why I said might be the case. I just don't want to jump to any conclusions; as I said not all employers are ***** looking to exploit their staff and it would be unfair to assume that they are in this case. Proper advice must be taken.

That is exactly what I said. I would say it is an absolute priority because changes like these tend to move quickly once they start.