Redundancy

An employer proposing to make 20 or more redundancies within a 90 day period is required to consult in advance with representatives of the affected employees, and to notify the redundancies to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

If your employer is making less than 20 employees redundant in one establishment they must follow certain procedures:

+ Your employer should select the employees fairly
+ You need to be warned and consulted about the redundancy
+ Your employer should take reasonable steps to redeploy you
+ You should get any redundancy pay you are due
+ Be given the correct amount of notice
+ Your employer should consider any alternatives to redundancy

If an employer uses redundancy to hide the real reason for ending your employment, or if they do not carry out the redundancy procedure properly, it may amount to unfair dismissal. The rights to redundancy payments and collective consultation are claimed separately from Unfair Dismissal.