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Redundancy

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MGMGMG123 | 10:28 Wed 03rd Dec 2008 | Law
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Hello, Please can you help me. My emploer are making a large amount of redundancies. In summary I have been told I have been put in a pool with 1 of my direct reports for waht is effectively my current role (it even has the same job title)!!! They have demoted the position and tole me that I have to reapply for the role. I had a feeling that they were trying to inch me out and put one of my team in my (this other person who ahs to apply for the job). My boss told me to take a step back in my role and let this other lady do some of the work abut 6 months ago so he could use me for better and exciting things. The exciting things never happened. He has been bullying me, not including me in meetings relevant to the role, belittling me in meetings, ignoring all my emails, not giving me appraisals, not following through on a promise to improve my grade. Can they put me in a pool for my OWN job? This has not happened to anyone else in the department either.

Also, to top it off they called me on holiday and told me this.

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Do you have a Trade Union at the Firm where you work ? If so, and you are a contributing member of it, you should contact your representative without delay.
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Hi, thanks for your answer. Unions have been consulted by the business but it is a financial services institution so there has never been a need to contribute to them. Should I consult a lawyer?
Hmm. Sounds interesting. Two issues here - let's separate them.
1) Your manager has not been following through on commitments made to do certain things, and particularly not reviewing your performance in a reasonable manner. You could raise a grievance about this.
2) You have been told your job is being made redundant. if that is the case, then it is hard to see how there can be a situation where you are then being told to re-apply for the job. The principle of redundancy is that the job is made redundant because of a cessation or reduction in business activity. The employer then has to put the impacted individuals into a pool for selection, then show that it used a fair means to select from the pool. Please understand that what I have said is based on the evidence you have put in the very short Question you can ask on here - it may not be that simple - but it looks like it is worth pursuing.
Much depends on what outcome you'd like to achieve. That's face it, if an employer wants an employee out, it will usually manage to achieve it, and for senior roles it is often about how much luchar is required to get the person to go without making a noise. If you are happy to go and it is all about extracting the most money, then the potential negotiating power that you may have is:
a) I have a grievance I am about to start as per 1) above.
b) your selection pooling process appears flawed. if you keep going down this track I will resign and seek to claim constructive dismissal at an Employment Tribunal. That will cost you an awful lot of time to defend and just think about the bad publicity and impact on other staff.
b) above is a high risk strategy but might help extract much more money for you - but I do urge you to seek the advice of a solicitor who knows about employment law first. You need independent advice.
This is unfortuantely quite common these days especially in financial services. I think the company will argue it has restructured your area and is creating one new role in place of what is currently two roles. That is not unusual. If there is a 70% fit from my experience they can match you; but if you and the other lady can both argue you match the new role then the employer has to select someone. Good luck.
As far as joining a union is concerned it's unfortunately teh case that many people such as yourself believe they don't need them..... until it's too late. Although from my experience the unions aren't helpful in situations like yours- they usualy have bigger fish to fry in trying to save hundreds of jobs or ensure fair processes and terms are in place for the majority.
Good luck.

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