| Legal Eagle Help Anyone (Non QPR Non Football) 12:45 - May 30 with 3301 views | A40Bosh |
Gents/Ladies
In the vain hope that someone has experience or advice on this.........
My Mrs is currently employed at a secondary school in LB of Hillingdon and they are restructuring due to budget cuts and her team of "non teaching" tutors are all being made redundant at the end of this school year.
Fortunately at the same time she found out she was then told that a 6th Form College in the LB of Harrow was looking for just such a team and she applied and quickly secured one of the positions for a role starting in August - Although it will be 3 days and not 5 days and therefore much less money.
Here is the problem. Her current school have told her that once she is made redundant she cannot start work in another local authority type role for a month and a day after her final day otherwise it will be classed as continuity of employment. So even if she went from her current school role and then worked in a hospital she would not get any redundancy even though she had been made redundant!!!
Our argument is that my wife is employed part time term time only and therefore she is not technically paid for the holiday period after the school breaks up for summer hols on 19th July. Therefore we would think that if she starts at the new place after 20th August she would be ok. However the school are now saying that her last day of employment is at the end of the school year, which is the day before the start of the new term and new school year in September.
I think she is being royally shafted because the school are also now refusing to let them go and terminate their contract early to avoid this because the council will question it and once they are told it is because she has found a new job for next school year they will refuse and force her to lose her redundancy payment or forgo the job offer.
It just stinks that part time term time employees (mainly mums trying to bring in some much needed cash) are treated so badly by employers. [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| Legal Eagle Help Anyone (Non QPR Non Football) on 12:19 - May 31 with 721 views | A40Bosh |
| Legal Eagle Help Anyone (Non QPR Non Football) on 17:28 - May 30 by CiderwithRsie |
Checked the point about the new employment being part-time:
I don't have all the resources I used to have, particularly case-law sources, but a check through the relevant statute [Employment Rights Act 1996] shows that the way she is caught is not down to the actual job she gets but down to her terminating her own employment, for any reason, within the notice period. As such the rate of pay etc. wouldn't be relevant any way I can see. [section 142 (1) (a)]. Strictly speaking under section 136 (3) it remains a redundancy dismissal, [so not a resignation if, for example, she needed to claim benefit;] she just isn't entitled to any money for it. I note that under s 142, in order to avoid paying the redundancy payment, the employer has to serve a counter-notice when they get her resignation, requiring her to remain in their employment until their notice expires. I suppose she could gamble on them failing to get their act together and then pursuing them for the payment if they don't. In fact I'm not sure it would be much of a gamble, because if they did serve the counter-notice, she could then revert to her original plan and either write off the payment in order to start the new job or comply with the counter-notice by withdrawing her resignation and serving out her time. I'm not sure what would happen either if she called the bluff of the counter-notice by turning up at the school during the holiday!
If she seriously wants to try any such thing, she really should get some specialist advice [i.e. not just my ramblings] and wave a copy of the relevant section of the Act under the nose of the specialist to ensure they get the point. It's fairly easily found on-line through HMSO.
"They really have her by the proverbials I feel and I just hope the HT at her new school will be able to do something to postpone the hire date and allow her to attend voluntarily for a month whilst undertaking "training" for her future job."
- That seems a good plan, if you can swing it. |
Thanks everyone - especially Cider! Great advice.
Once we know the outcome from the new school's HT about postponing her start date we will be better placed to know if we need to push back on the existing school and bypass the Business manager dealing with and ask to deal with the HeadTeacher direct because from what I can see both from the Act Section 142 and from reading the Model Redundancy used by Hillingdon's HR Cooperative subscribing schools, an employee is entitled to negotiate an early release with the HeadTeacher and the HeadTeacher can sign this offer. If she does not side with my wife it will be from pure bloodymindedness or fear of her Chair of Governors because there is no reason for my wife to be in school during June and July as her year 11 pupils have already left to go on study leave for GCSE. Furthermore, what excuse could they have for refusing to bring her date of termination earlier to 19 July because the last 6 weeks of her contract are summer holidays where she cannot work because the school is shut and she is only contracted as a term time only employee.
Grrrrr. | |
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| Legal Eagle Help Anyone (Non QPR Non Football) on 10:20 - Jun 1 with 691 views | A40Bosh |
All's well that ends well!!
HT of my Mrs new school emailed this morning to say he can postpone her start date until October so my Mrs does not have to fight to keep her redundancy or try and leave early, so that is a great relief.
The icing on the cake was that when she confirmed to the current scholl that she would not be applying for any of the listed internal jobs she also stated that she was finding the situation untenable and that she felt undervalued and did not think it was fair that she had to remain putting on a brace face until now until the end of term in July and therefore wanted them to consider putting her on gardening leave at some point.
She starts gardening leave from lunchtime today.
 
Happy Holiday!!
Thanks for all the helpful responses guys, it was a big help in getting us prepared for what she might have to deal with if it went the other way. | |
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