Aer Lingus redundancy

murrayp4

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a matter of employment law is what Aer Lingus is proposing to do- make cabin staff redundant and then re-hire them on less favourable terms- unlawful. I thought that redundancy necessarily means that the position no longer exists. Surely they're leaving themselves open to unfair dismissal claims.

faceman

Its legal as long as the new jobs have different responsibilities Im afraid. Im sure they will have different job titles too.

Its quite a common practice.

Redundancy is about making the position redundant as opposed to the person.

Tom Young

Mod Note:Beware, this thread will be shut if anyone gets emotional or flys anywhere near the charter in relation to this one.

murrayp4

Just a quick note that I have no connection with Aer Lingus whatsoever.

Jev/N

Tom Young wrote: »

Mod Note:Beware, this thread will be shut if anyone gets emotional or flys anywhere near the charter in relation to this one.

:pac:

barochoc

Faceman is right, it's common practice throughout the world.

I'd hardly think any of the Aer lingus staff will refuse either as there's nothing else out there for them.

I wonder if they get any payout for the initial redundancy seeing as they're being re-hired the next day?

I'd imagine they do, but probably lose half of in to the Tax man :mad:

Godge

Wasn't there a similar case with a ferry company a few years ago which made their highly-paid Irish workers redundant, reflagged to an Eastern European country and hired lower-paid Eastern European workers. There was publicity over this but the company still managed to get the statutory payments refunded by ETE.

I might be wrong in the details.

InReality

My understanding was that if a person A was made redundant on the basis that there was no longer such a position in the company , and that company subsequently hired person B for a "similar" role , person A could claim for unfair dismissal.

Is this correct ?

If so how does it tie in with the Aerlinguis plan for the cabin crew ? Is that not a case for unfair dismissal ?

Our man in Havana

They will probably call them "in air customer service consultants" and hire them on a self employed basis. That will get around any legal issues.

faceman

InReality wrote: »

My understanding was that if a person A was made redundant on the basis that there was no longer such a position in the company , and that company subsequently hired person B for a "similar" role , person A could claim for unfair dismissal.

Is this correct ?

If so how does it tie in with the Aerlinguis plan for the cabin crew ? Is that not a case for unfair dismissal ?

I dont know anything about the Aer Lingus structure and job descriptions put to give a hypothetical example.

They could add the responsibility of cleaning the plane inbetween flights to the cabin crew remit, rename the job title and come up with a new pay & bonus structure and it could be acceptable.

Cunsiderthis

murrayp4 wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a matter of employment law is what Aer Lingus is proposing to do- make cabin staff redundant and then re-hire them on less favourable terms- unlawful. I thought that redundancy necessarily means that the position no longer exists. Surely they're leaving themselves open to unfair dismissal claims.

How can someone claim to have been unfairly dismissed when their employer is offering them a job, which they then refuse?

I suppose it is possible that someone could try to construct a case, but the fact that they have been made redundant, and have been, presumably, paid redundancy, might make "unfair dismissal" difficult to prove.

For anyone who decides to take teh "new" position, they will not be entitled to redundancy as a condition of redundancy is that the employee is not allowed to work for the same employer for a period after being made redundant.