Notice periods and redundancy

[freddie09]

My husband was told that his position was earmarked for redundancy due to a company merger around October 2008. Yesterday he was finally told that he will be served notice of redundancy in 10 days time.

 

He has, naturally, been looking for a job since October 2008 and last Thursday was finally offered a really great job. He is supposed to be on 3 month’s notice. As soon as he was offered the job, he told his boss who verbally told him a notice period of 6 weeks would be fine. (Notice periods have been informally reduced for all staff who have left so far). He then handed in his written notice saying he will be leaving on a certain date, meaning he would leave before he was officially made redundant, thereby forgoing his redundancy payment.

 

He has now been told by the powers that be that they will not reduce his notice period to 6 weeks and he will have to work the 3 months. This means he will lose his new job as they have a project deadline to meet. This seems very unreasonable as his present company will be officially making him redundant next week anyway!

 

Any advice on where he stands would be so appreciated? Can they force him to work the 3 months?

[elche]

Any advice on where he stands would be so appreciated? Can they force him to work the 3 months?

 

Hi freddie

 

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it would appear that your OH is being made redundant, he has a 3 month contractual notice period, he is prepared to work 6 weeks of this, his company want him to work the entire period, and he is content to leave with no Stat Red Pay?

 

Thus, he gives 6 weeks notice of his intention to resign, he works the 6 weeks, gets paid for 6 weeks of his notice period, then resigns with immediate affect, and commences his new job.

 

His old employer will not pay any more notice, as it was not worked, but why should that bother OH as they now have a new job.

 

The only worry for you, is that some employers put a clause in the contract which effcetively can render you liable for the ADDITIONAL cost of temporary labour to cover your 'un-worked'' contractual notice period.

 

Provided you are not compensated like Sir Fred Goodwin, this will almost certainly be limited to the small claims track, so should not unduly worry you.

 

Che