Originally Posted by
Hipennine
Most of what you have described is not unique to aviation. I can't remember the wording but IIRC, UK Industrial law allows any company to effect immediate redundancies without consultation in the event of financial distress. Statutory redundancy payments must still be made, but if the company calls in administrators, the redundant employees become creditors.
You are absolutely right, redundancy without consultation does happen, but it is uncommon, remember the outcry with P&O.
Whist the CAA and employees were both creditors of the insolvent Monarch Aircraft Engineering Ltd, during an CVA, employees were being given misleading information and deliberately being excluded from the restructuring that was happening.
Company Directors, Administrators, HR and Employee representatives all signed Non Disclosure Agreements which excluded employees from knowing the truth about the company being broken up and the eventual redundancies.
The current legislation on collective redundancies in insolvency situations is clear. Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (1992), consultations, where 20 or more employees are to be made redundant, must start as soon as there is ‘clear intention’ to do so. It is clear that by using NDA's and planning to break up and sell a company without telling employees, that there was a breach of
Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (1992).
Even if there were good reasons to not consult to keep passengers flying, my point is should the CAA be behaving in a way that causes employees to be out of pocket and subject to additional unnecessary distress?
As pilots do you not think when an airline goes bust that you should be consulted about it before it happens? Statutory redundancy and pay in lieu of notice payments are capped and are far less than you would get if airlines consulted properly followed employment law.
When Norwegian UK went bust they called in administrators and did not pay the contractual 3 month notice, but instead the lower statutory pay in lieu of notice and statutory redundancy.