Advice on termination of employment or zero hours contract.

My mother’s job has been put at risk due to the pandemic and I’d like a bit of advice from people who may have been in this situation before or who have legal knowledge on this please.

She is a soft play centre manager. She has been in full time employment for 15 years with this company. Her employers have contacted her today to offer her a zero hours contract. They say this could be temporary contract (I don’t believe it will for one minute tho) and that once things improve they will then offer her fixed term employment once more. Obviously she’s is a bit of a fix at the minute as her employer has said that she doesn’t have to sign her new deal but if she doesn’t then there might have to be terminations within the company with her job possibly being at risk.

Where does she stand in terms of redundancy or anything really going forward?

I’ve told her not to sign anything and say she’s not happy about losing her fixed income plus the no guarantee of hours they are offering.

Can or will she be entitled to redundancy if they lay her off due to the reasons above or at worst case scenario if the company goes bust?

Basically what’s the recommended advice for her to take to make sure she’s financially secure no matter the outcome?

I cant for one minute help but think the owners are just trying to cover their backs by limiting outgoings and their own personal risks, but this comes at a cost for my mum who has given this company 15 years service and thoroughly enjoys her job. I feel as tho they are personally trying to S**t on her but I’d like some advice either way if anyone can help.

TIA

 

In the first instance citizens advice or ACAS will give her all the answers she will need

 

Evening Royston

do not do sign or say anything ! This is typical tactics to get rid on the cheap and I have seen this god awful truck played by employees several times over and it stinks ! !

I take it your mum is over 40 ? If so 15 years Redundancy pay at £500+ per week x 1.5 is around £12k she should be getting as a redundancy pay off.

That’s why the employer is shaking like a sh*tting dog !!

ACAS GMB citizens advice or even a quick free of charge for your first 30 mins advice from a local employment solicitor. MKB in town are very good ask for their top employment chap he’s called Ben Mcfeely he will help you.

I’d be taking advantage of this free 30 minute advice ASAP on Monday to get the ball rolling.

15 years service will give her some great redundancy pay off monies but she needs protection of a solicitor to word her emails to them on her behalf. Tell her to zip her lips say nothing at all and let the solicitor do all of her talking for her in the way of official letters.

Make sure she does everything in writing and all replies to her are In writing also from her employer strictly Do nothing At all verbally. Any face to face meetings need to be recorded to protect her employment rights also and she cannot go into these alone because they will twist and turn anything she may say to their own advantage.

in the first instance email whoever is proposing this to her and ask for a full breakdown of their proposal in writing so she can fully understand it and then take Immediate legal advice and then She will reply in due course. Tell her not to engage in any verbal conversations with anybody about it as it all because From now everything needs to be via email in writing.

This will protect her and her employee will get cold feet the minute she mentions the words legal advice and solicitor !!

what’s really going on here is the disrespect they are showing your mum and 15 years of loyalty by getting rid of her for nothing and on the cheap. She needs to get her 15 years redundancy ASAP and out of their and run Before they pull the plug on the business !

Tell her to take all emotion out of it and see them for what they are !! Ignore the crap of zero hours bull sh*t it’s just a ploy to fire her on the cheap !!

She deserves 15 years of redundancy pay and this buffer of a pay off will cover her until she finds another job.

best of luck mate I hope it all goes well

 

Full time employed for 15 years?

DO NOT SIGN would be my advice. Zero hours contract means they can essentially lay her off for months or forever with no recompense. She’s given them 15 years; if the company goes tits up (by which I mean insolvent...!) she can claim statutory redundancy through the government - (copied and pasted from .gov):

Redundancy pay
You’re normally entitled to redundancy pay if you:

have been made redundant
were an employee
were continuously employed by the insolvent business for 2 years or more
You’ll get:

half a week’s pay for each full year you were employed and under 22 years old;
one week’s pay for each full year you were employed and between 22 and 40 years old;
one and half week’s pay for each full year you were employed and 41 or older.

Redundancy payments are capped at £538 a week (£525 if you were made redundant before 6 April 2020).

You can get a payment for a maximum of 20 years that you were employed at the business.

I don’t know how old your mum is but fifteen years service is going to be somewhere between 15 weeks and 22.5 weeks redundancy pay.

If the company doesn’t go insolvent, she’s still signing away all her accrued benefit in effect, as even though redundancy can be worked out on average pay, if she’s on zero hours they never need to make anyone redundant, they just keep them on with no hours, no pay and wait for her to leave of her own will.

I’m not a legal expert but it sounds like a c u next Tuesday’s trick to me. I know she’ll be torn with her loyalties being towards the company and also her friends/colleagues - but I don’t think she’s being shown any loyalty here in return.

 

So basically screw the business out of every last penny they can get , a business who are probably on their knees due to lack of customers from no fault of their own.
What a world we live in.

 

It isn't a case of screw the business. Its make sure the business doesn't screw you by using underhand techniques to avoid paying you your legally entitled redundancy pay

 

They aren't making her redundant.
Maybe they're having to cut her hours due to lack of customers. Hence trying to protect their business.

 

It’s not wrong to get what’s legally due. Hard earned rights these being eroded by zero hours contracts.

 

Morning plobby

She isn’t screwing the business she is simply claiming what she’s legally entitled to after 15 loyal years of service.

the business is using the excuse of a zero hours contract giving her flannel to force her to sign it thus signing away 15 years of redundancy pay which is around £12k.

The minute this lady signs the zero hours contract she wavers all of her previous redundancy rights and they can pocket her redundancy pay. 15 years of service she legally deserves to pay paid correctly and not screwed over under the mask of a zero hours contract.

only other option would be is to sign the zero hours contract to help the business out but the contract would have a caveat that should she be made redundant the £12k or so for her 15 years of service previously would be honoured and paid

 

I believe the advice is ‘make sure you get what you’re legally entitled to’.

or do you believe that your employment protections shouldn’t exist.

 

100% call something like citizens advice and get concrete info on where you stand before signing anything bud

 

That was my first instinct too. A business that’s not going to bounce back swiftly and in all fairness, it’s highly likely to go bust.

I don’t think redundancy payments will be very high if they’re insolvent and they end up being wound up.

I feel for employees, but **** me sideways, try being a business owner at this time with not just your own problems but the weight of your employees futures on your shoulders too.

 

The same world where an employer will wilfully erode fifteen years loyal service by one of its employees to nothing and effectively lay her off without actually doing it?

If they’d offered 20 hours say, from full time, saying they couldn’t guarantee full time anymore, you’d have a point. They haven’t. Zero hours contracts should be banned, or some new casual labour legislation created to restrict which industries need them.

Shops and services don’t need to function in the gig economy. Part time and/or temp contracts are more than enough in those games.

 

Morning Wath and West Melton.
It's a tricky situation for sure. I would imagine the play centre is a small family run business with a handful of staff that have given guaranteed full employment for a number of years. Through no fault of their own the business is probably closed at the moment but hoping to open again soon therefore trying to protect their business and saving jobs.
Paying redundancy from an empty pot isn't possible.

 

Hi Royston / plobby

Fully appreciate your predicament and your stance plobby from the owners perspective, it’s an awful situation for owners and theirs staff.

2 ways you can go here.

To help the business out Accept the zero hours but knowing they can Legally ‘get rid’ of your mum and she will be entitled to nothing should things go “south”

or........being legally blunt whether the owners are swimming in money or don’t have a penny it’s “legally” none of your mums business royston. Legally she is owed around £12k in a redundancy pay. Personally I would say her 15 years of service she deserves this. She could always agree to the zero hours but get them to write in this contract should redundancy happen they would honour the £12k

I appreciate it’s a moral dilemma for her and the owners !!!

good luck whatever path you take on this !!

 

This is NOT the only other option. Agreeing to take unpaid leave would be a much smarter alternative.

 

Thanks for everyone who has contributed to the thread and offered advice. Just to be more clear tho, my mum isn’t by anyway trying to screw the business. The place is still closed due to government advice and the owners have no idea yet how much foot traffic is going to return to the place of business once opened. They have openly said that they don’t expect it to be open in the next two months but realise that if that’s the case and the furlough scheme changes, they are then legally obliged to pay employees pensions and national insurance. They’ve not even given anything a chance yet but want all staff on zero hours before they reopen. Completely understand the owners situation but they have not even tried to offer to look after my mum. It all seems very rushed.

My father owns a business and I’m employed by him so I understand how hard it is atm as I’m working reduced hours but we also have other employees and he’s doing his upmost to protect everything and everyone as good loyal employees don’t come around so often. Works both ways I’m afraid.

 

It’s a sad situation to which there are no winners, only losers. It’s lockdown in a microcosm.

 

It's a tactic my employer tried with me before all this Covid **** started try to force staff they'd have to pay redundancy to on to zero hours contracts, then don't give them any or little work so little or no pay staff then leave due to no income and the company have got rid of staff with no cost to them. Soon as I mentioned I'd spoken to Acas and Id happily see them at an employment tribunal they backed off me sadly some of my colleagues fell for it and now have either left or are struggling on little income because my employer basically just uses them when they are busy.

 

Its definitely a horrible situation all round but I don't think the employee should rush to sign a zero hours contract that is of no real benefit to her.
Its highly likely a lot of the soft play areas are going to go to the wall.