Unfortunately many colleagues in our industry are, and will be, dealing with redundancy, the least they can expect is to get the money they are owed.
On the 30th July the government, very quietly, announced a new piece of legislation that, in a highly unusual move, came into force the next day. In fact it was such a quick, and such a quiet announcement that, despite a series of very dull google alerts, we have only just found out about it, thanks to the lovely folk at Bhayani Law (for all your legal HR & Employment needs).
This new piece of law is good news for employees and bad news for dodgy employers (possibly explaining why the government didn’t make a song and dance about it). Basically, it states that people need to be paid their redundancy based on their pay before the furlough scheme started rather than on the reduced furlough scheme payments.
This was an issue due to the fact that redundancy pay is based on the average of the employee’s previous 12 weeks pay, which for many included furlough pay. The government had ‘advised’ companies to compensate based on full pay but it discovered that some shysters were ignoring this so they decided to make it law (for more info on your redundancy rights check out our article here).
After the discoveries we made about the disgraceful behaviour of some employers in our industry with regards to furlough payments we can only assume some of you may be suffering the same fate when it comes to furlough. The sad fact is that over the coming weeks and months the furlough contributions from the government will continue to go down which will undoubtably lead to an increase in redundancies.
Make sure you get what you are owed.
So if you, a friend or colleague is dealing with redundancy then please share this news. If you are having trouble sleeping then the full details of the ruling can be found here. If you have any questions regarding your redundancy in general then as always The Drinks Trust & Hospitality Action are there to assist through their helplines. Also the Citizens Advice Bureau have a great advice section on redundancy on their website as well as a helpline.