Takeover

[shazbang]

My sister-in-law is a waitress in a cafe and has worked there for 3-4 years. She just found out today the boss has sold the business to another cafe owner. Her current boss is saying their jobs are safe for the moment but anything could happen with the new boss. Where does she stand legally? If the new owner wants new staff is she entitled to redundancy? Can the new owner just come in and sack them all? Cheers for any help given. :-)

[les saisies]

As far as I know if the seller of the business does not make the employees redundant at the time of sale the contracts of employment are transferred to the new owner.

If he/she then decides to make any staff redundant the new owners are responsible for any redundancy payments due, based on the length of employment in the business and not the length of employment for the new owner.

Therefore if anybody is made redundant then either the old owner must do it and pay redundancy or the new owner can do it but they will have to pay redundancy based on the length of employment in the business.

When we bought our business many years ago we made it a condition of the sale that the vendor made all employees redundant at his expense before we completed the sale. We were then able to employ who we wanted on new contracts on our terms and not leave ourselves open to large redundancy claims from existing employees who were not going to fit in with our plans.

I would think that from what you have said that for the moment your sister-in-law's job is probably safe and also that of any claim for redundancy in the future. If she was facing the chop I personally would have thought that it would have already happened.