Contract change

pudgey22

Hi all,

My gf got told today that the company she's working for is going to bring in flexi time rather than full time contract.
She works in retail by the way.
What they want to do is decrease hours and increase headcount, basically trying to take lunch breaks etc out of the equation, have 2 4hour shifts rather than one 8 hour shift with a lunch break thrown in.
Can they make her sign a new contract?
I'd have thought no, it's not like they're trying to make anyone redundant, they've said they actually want to increase the headcount.
Should she just say no and see what happens....Any advice?

leeroybrown

Generally a company can't just make employees sign new contracts because they want them to. Beyond that (particularly in retail) things can get a bit more complicated. How long has she been working there? Has she got any warnings on file?

pudgey22

No warnings on file, she's been there just over a year.
It's all full timers that will be affected by it,there's 8 of them, there'll be 6 by September as 2 are leaving for college etc. It doesn't sound right to me, the company are doing ok, so it's not as if they're letting people go, just trying to make people do any hours.
If she does sign it it's possible she could be put on five 4 hour days, which means she couldn't even claim for days she's not working.
Same as everyone else we're tight for money and could do without her losing the hours.

leeroybrown

What they might try to do is to make the full-time retail positions redundant and offer the staff alternative flexible hours contracts. I can't really comment on whether that would be a legally sound redundancy or not. If that is the case then your gf would have a choice between the new contract or redundancy (with no payment).

pudgey22

Cheers, I thought that being made redundant meant that your position didn't exist any more which can't be the case if they increase the amount of staff.
I dunno, it's dodgy i reckon, fk it we'll see what happens, thanks!

leeroybrown

There is probably a way that they can make the full-time positions redundant and replace them with similar but not identical flexible part-time positions. I'm not sure of the legalities involved in doing this.

Nody

leeroybrown wrote: »

There is probably a way that they can make the full-time positions redundant and replace them with similar but not identical flexible part-time positions. I'm not sure of the legalities involved in doing this.

I do in the sense that I've gone through it twice and yes they can and it is perfectly legal (at least as far as I've been able to find out).

What they will declare goes roughly like this:
A) All full time positions named X are now redundant
We're now looking for people for our new flexi time positions Y with almost the same name and title as full time position (add/remove 1 task basically)

Any one in group A who's over 2 years get stat. redundancy (i.e. 2 weeks pay per 1 year worked +1 week); any one below 2 years gets nothing.

As they can clearly show that the X positions are now gone they are allowed to hire for position Y instead. The headcount does not matter; what matters is the job position name and description.

daveyboy_1ie

That sucks Nody, sorry to hear you wnet through that twice. Its ging to happen more often I reckon, firms who are in trouble trying to cut costs and firms who are not in trouble will use the current climate as an escuse to cut even more costs.

leeroybrown

Nody wrote: »

We're now looking for people for our new flexi time positions Y with almost the same name and title as full time position (add/remove 1 task basically)\

Yeah. That's what I'd assumed they'd do to get around it.