The End of the Affair.........

Hullo ma wee blog,

Well, its finally over. Its been going on since May 22nd and at last I feel like I can put it behind me and get on with the rest of my life. I settled for an out of court figure. Not completely satisfactory perhaps but reality bites in many ways. I was offered a sum way in excess of what the tribunal could award and my solicitor felt that he could not recommend further insurance company expense with that on the table. One of those 'I'm gonna make you an offer you cant refuse' moments. And so the deal is done and we both walk away.

In some ways not what I wanted but I can accept it as it gives us some further financial security.

Time to move on methinks.........



See you later.

Tribunal - interesting times.....

Hullo ma wee blog,

Well the time for the unfair dismissal tribunal to hear my case is fast approaching, scheduled for 3rd and 4th Dec, and my colleagues who agreed to give statements and evidence have all stepped up to the mark and confirmed attendance at the hearing which makes me feel both very supported and grateful to them for having the courage to do that when they may need to reapply to the company for employment at some stage. To cover them as much as I can I have asked the tribunal to summons them in effect, which demands compulsory attendance and gives them some scope for stating that they were not 100% willing to come but had no option.

I had a lengthy meeting last Thursday with the very expensive solicitors which my insurance company has provided for me and they have again agreed that my case is valid and are totally confident that any tribunal will decide in my favour. But the decision is only the first part. The next thorny issue for them to decide would be any financial award in compensation of my claim.

My specialist employment law solicitor has advised that this could in effect be a complete lottery, and very hard to forecast due to the high level of redundancy and length of service money in my redundancy payment, which already puts me within sight of the maximum that can be awarded, but he has advised what he thinks would be the likely figure based on his experience.

My former employers representatives have already made an initial offer in an attempt to settle out of court which I have rejected strongly. My solicitor said he was surprised at the level of offer which was high for a first attempt and he said he felt that this reflected their concern at the strength of my case. I turned the screws a bit more on checking who would be attending from my employer to find that it would only be my head of dept by asking my solicitor to instruct a summons to 4 directors to come up from London for two days as, in my opinion, they have accountability for and questions to answer on the fairness of the process used and the lack of high level review and sign off as per the corporate process.

Today I have received a substantially increased offer for settlement out of court and I am going to take some time to consider this over the weekend. I am very much minded to have my day in tribunal and to have my fight fully vindicated. I feel in many ways that my self esteem almost demands it. I am very bitter with my employer for treating me this way after 32 years and so I would also dearly love to see if a few newspapers would be interested in a story of how a high profile company, and one which is regarded as an icon of British industry is using such negligent and underhand means to reduce the workforce in these difficult times. I think they would. I know our local paper would be only too keen as they are not fans of my previous employer and have written several articles about its impact and high handed attitude locally.

Part of me is surprised I feel this way but it has grown in me having gone through the redundancy process and the laughable procedure of two levels of farcical appeal which is now, having experienced it, only really designed to further protect the companies interests and has no value whatsoever as an unbiased protector of your rights as an employee. I have already proved the company incorrect when they failed to advise me of my right to move redundancy payment to pension untaxed, and they have admitted that the process is going to be amended to avoid this in future, but how many thousands, and it is thousands, have been made redundant this year without that information.

I will ponder my options over the next few days.


see you later.

Listening to Satie...... various recordings

Sorry, all you guys in the Royal Mail........

Hullo ma wee blog,

I came home this afternoon having been at a training day for childrens hearings. The legislation for freeing up children for adoption has changed and to be able to continue to sit on hearings all members have to attend compulsory training.

On arrival there was a pile of mail behind the door.

Mail is erratic just now due to the Royal Mail workers taking sporadic industrial action in pursuit of something which has passed me by. But then again, other than the odd letter to Job Center plus or a birthday card I never use the Royal Mail anymore these days.

Maybe that's why they're taking industrial action!

{Actually, as its the Royal Mail your Majesty, could I ask you to nip round there and sort it out cos you have been letting the side down for years. Its not on. Its not good enough! Its not very British! Would never have happened in your Dads day...}

But as usual, here I am going off at tangents.



One of the wee white envelopes didn't contain a bill or another of those bloody annoying letters advising me that I have definitely won £20,000 first prize in a prize draw that I have never entered, and it will be sent to me without delay as long as I complete the enclosed order form for complete shit and send it back WITHOUT DELAY, otherwise Mr R, you may forfeit your prize.

No, one of the letters contained the decision for my stage two company appeal against unfair redundancy dismissal.

AND THE DECISION WAS.........

you're fired!.

Surprise, Surprise - as Cilla Black used to say.

So what?

Tell me something I didn't know!

Actually my very nice employment law solicitor e-mailed me yesterday to say that she has had independently calculated the estimated pension loss over the next 10 years {which is the minimum time it would have been running} as £173,000 and could I get back to her with details of my monthly earnings, private health care, company car value, profit share, shares allocations ,fuel benefit and any other costs I can think of as soon as possible as the company have been in touch with ACAS to initiate investigation into an out of court settlement.

Not that I would get anything like that, only the teensiest fraction of that total due to the way the law is around maximum compensation for unfair dismissal loss in the UK.

Still.....

Its one form that I am going to fill in.

Think it might be safer to e-mail it though.

Sorry, all you guys in the Royal Mail!

see you later.

Listening to Stevie Nicks, 'Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You'

Redundant?....Me?

Hullo ma wee blog,

March 10th. Working from home.

The phone rang and I picked it up after a couple of rings, checked the name on the screen, saw it was our head of dept and pressed answer. "Hi boss, how are you?". Unusual but not completely unheard of. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment as I automatically continued work on the item on my laptop and then he said "Alistair, I need you to come for a meeting with me" Thinking it was about a work allocation or project I said "ok, where and when" He immediately came back with " Tomorrow 11.00am in Birmingham".

I felt an instant hit of something like adrenaline, a definite twinge of minor anxiety. This was something a bit different then. I remember hesitating a moment and saying that I already had an appointment in Edinburgh as I was meeting my team leader for my end of year review. I got another jolt when I heard "Its cancelled I'm afraid. This will have to take priority" come back at me. "Take a couple of hours to make any changes to your plans for tomorrow and any travel arrangements and we'll talk later to make sure its all arranged."

Somewhere in my guts a little bastard switched on a washing machine and left the room.

The next day in a room with my head of dept and a company personnel manager I was told after 32 years of service that I was being made redundant in a short perfunctory interview of about 15 minutes, held without advising me of any right to representation. More than half of the dept I worked in got the same message.

Two days later I was told that although selected for redundancy the company wanted to retain my skills and would be looking for a position. I was told that the selection criteria was performance and I expressed surprise as I had always been a green rated performer. I was told there were a lot of those in my dept. Not surprising considering the job we did I suppose, as a project manager for an international company. My head of dept explained that he was given responsibility for deciding who stayed and had ranked us in performance. I asked him how this had been done as we worked across the country and he managed the team remotely through a group of team leaders who had also all been made redundant and he said very clearly " My decision, no one else involved, although I took into consideration previous conversations with the team leaders."

Two weeks after that the company posted record profits and announced 26000 new jobs planned for the year ahead.

Between then and redundancy I was advised of two jobs, one of which was advised as not available the day after, and was sent for one interview where on arrival I was told that the job didn't exist.

I had asked for a copy of the selection criteria and my completed form. It took almost two weeks for my head of dept to supply this and I found that my selection was based on evidence of 130 words after 32 years service. I disagreed vehemently with 90% of what had been written and called my ex team leader to review what my head of dept had written. He said he was non plussed and that none of the negative comments listed had ever been discussed with him in any way and that as I was due my annual review on the day of initial advice of redundancy would not have been any part of my review.

Strangely the staff selected to remain were spread across the UK in a perfect geographical split.

That's the basis of me starting fight the company on the grounds of unfair selection.

Since then I have found that the process used has been in my opinion, and it is only MY opinion, unfair and unreasonable, and through lack of a clear scoring process and a lack of review by senior management, left one person to make highly subjective decisions which has affected me and my future adversely.

there are many other issues involved and included but that's the bones of the story.

yesterday i went to a stage two appeal of the company appeals process, the first appeal having decided that although some aspects may not have been handled correctly, and that as a result of my feedback several points have been fed back to be considered in a review of the process, the underlying decision to dismiss was fair and reasonable.

I don't expect the 2nd stage appeal to do anything other than regurgitate the first decision and have already engaged a lawyer to represent me at an employment tribunal in early December.

We will see what the outcome is in time. But in the meantime I am job hunting.


see you later.

listening to Debussy.....'The Girl With the Flaxen Hair'

The Rematch......

Hullo there ma wee blog,


Well, thats me off now for my 2nd stage appeal against an unfair redundancy selection. Lets see what happens now.....

Place your bets, place your bets.....

Some chance!

See you later.

No Surprise.......

Oh aye, I never gave you the update on my appeal.

As forecast the original decision was upheld as right and fair.

ARE YOU JOKING.......DONT YOU SPEAK ENGLISH........DID YOU ACTUALLY LISTEN TO A BLOODY WORD I SAID?

Well of course they must have. And they are entitled to make their own decision. So the company is acting in a fair and reasonable way making you redundant when they dont consult with you about the situation or the process, when they brief you on what will happen not consult about the situation, when they arrange meetings and dont advise you to have representation and when they tell you on day one of the consultation that you are out of a job and two days later give you a formal letter saying there are risks of redundancy. And its also fair not to tell you what the selection criteria is or how it is scored and to put into your selection form that you have delivered your role below average but are still a green performer. And obviously its fair to use a dept team ranking that has allegedly been put together by 5 managers, 3 of whom have never been in any of your projects, or any of your colleagues, or to retain two staff who have never yet delivered a project on their own, or to deny that geography is a factor and yet retain a perfect geographical split. And its highly reasonable when they say they have consulted with representatives but wont advise who the representatives are or the content of the consultation.

I'm glad they think thats reasonable. My lawyer thinks I have a reasonable case too. so I now have to appeal the appeal and go through it all again with yet another suit from the company who will no doubt regurgitate the same corporate platitudes and the same old decision. I cant tell you how frustrating that is. I can't believe either that I have spent 32 years of my bloody life working for a shower like that. Thats multi national corporations for you I guess.

I am not lying down on this. I have always trusted my instincts and judgement and I wont be treated in this way, being swatted like an annoying little flea.

So I will go on with the appeals charade while I lodge the tribunal claim.

AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Listening to - the sound of blood pumping in my ears!!!!

The appeal

Hi there ma wee blog.

Today I attended my appeal hearing for my claim of unfair dismissal. I claim that my redundancy was unfair due to an unfair selection process and also seperately that the normal stated company process for making people redundant wasn't followed properly.

So today I got to sit down with one of the company directors and lay out my case in detail. I started talking at 9am and stopped at 11.50am. I got what I wanted: to sit down with the company and explain exactly what I feel they got wrong. To show and explain the evidence I believe supports my case and to be questioned about what I believe should have happened. I took my time, and carefully went over everything I had prepared and at the end of it the director thought that there as enough concerns to go and speak to the people involved in the process to check my claims. So the hearing is adjourned and we will reconvene next week when I will get to hear what they have to say and continue arguing my case. Then once the discussion is over I should get a decision from the company whether they believe I am correct in what I say and what they are prepared to do about it.

They can do several things I suppose: offer me my job or an alternative job back, buy me off or tell me I'm wrong and to go away, in which case I will then take them to an unfair dismissal tribunal to get an independant decision on the case.

But for now I'm content. I got to get someone senior from the company in front of me and I got to tell him exactly how I feel about the way I have been treated and what I feel has been done wrong and to explain exactly how I feel it should have been handled. It felt great. It was cathartic. It was healing and it was bloody long overdue. So, I made the most of it. I said exactly what I had prepared, what it feels like to be done over in such a shoddy underhand way and to have your livelihood taken away from you in a moment. I cant forecast what result I will get out of it but my expectations are low and I told him that. If I have already been treated in an unfair way and the appeal is part of the same process, why should I feel that this will be any different. He seemed shocked that I felt that way but why shouldn't I. What are the chances of him bucking back against the company with all the corporate ramifications for similar situations in the future? Not bloody much I would say. Not unless he absolutely has to.

For now its enough. Lets let it play out and see how it falls.

As one of my heroes would say " The game is afoot!"

Track of the day "Flowerdale" by Philip Spark.

Oh by the way. If you're interested go to you tube and look up ' great cornet solo' and look for Flowerdale by Philip Spark to hear a beautiful rendering of the solo by Yorkshire Building Society Band.

The picture is of the inside of Lincoln Cathedral. Its near where Dad was based in the war and was held in great affection by him and others of Bomber Command. Its an enormous landmark and he always said he felt safe when he could see it again.

see you soon..........

Technical problems and an appeal

Hullo ma wee blog,

I have been off line due a computer problem. I was listening to the radio on BBC i- player the other morning when the player just packed in, followed a split second later by the whole laptop shutting down, and when I tried to restart it I got the lights coming on and then another shutdown. This repeated every time I tried to start up and it took me a couple of days to get the numbers and info for the help desk, but once I eventually managed to get a hold of them, I was up and running again in a couple of minutes. Thanks to the guys at the help desk for that!

So, what else has been happening. Well, I have decided to appeal against my redundancy. I have used the company appeal process as I was within the window of opportunity to use that but I have also been speaking to a solicitor, funded by the redundancy insurance, to assess the strength of my case, should I need to go beyond the appeal and take my case to an industrial tribunal.

I received confirmation that a solicitor had been appointed by the insurance company yesterday and the lovely G, who knows about these things through her work in Edinburgh, says that the firm appointed is the top dog firm for employment law in Edinburgh. She was well impressed with the insurance company as it must be costing an arm and a leg. Her company wont use these guys as they cant afford them. I must say it makes me feel much better knowing that I will have some credible back up and not some little back street operator who is not going to do the business for me.

I am waiting confirmation from them that they have had a chance to look over the documentation I sent them, and they accept the grounds for my appeal, which is that a fair and open process has not been followed, and that the selection criteria was again too subjective to be fair and open. _ I was part of a team of 30 people that have been treated in 3 different ways at one time - some were taken to the office and told they were being made redundant and should go home and not come back to work. They were given some extra cash to sign an agreement giving up their right to appeal. Some, me included, were taken elsewhere and seen one to one and told we were being made redundant but the company would try to redeploy as we had skills and experience they wanted to keep and the rest were all seen together and told that everyone else was out but they were safe. As we were a high performing team, we were pretty much all green performers so I feel there should have been a transparent means of selection. We should all have been displaced and told what was happening, what the criteria was and the selection criteria applied and then made redundant accordingly. My selection criteria comments when I saw them are basically a concoction of one person written to read in a particular way. I feel I can disprove more than half of them and argue against most of the rest. I'm gutted to have to do this after 30 years working for the company, but if they think I'm just going to roll over and take it without a fight they can think again.

I don't know what I will get out of it as the redundancy is pretty much the max any tribunal can award, but I am not prepared to be treated dishonestly by one person in the company and I'm pissed off that the company don't have any checks or balances in place to make sure its all above board. Ach, at the end of it I know that the company is only interested in getting the numbers down to the wanted levels as fast as possible and they are willing to wait and see what kind of issues pop out of the woodwork, and if nothing does, so much the better.

What I want to achieve is making them agree that its all been a badly managed load of bollocks process and they cant prove their comments in the selection criteria. I hope that rather than go to tribunal they will make a further cash offer to boost the redundancy fund. What I don't want is to be offered my job back as I know I couldn't go back and work for someone who clearly doesn't want me to be part of his team and is prepared to lie to get what he wants. I need to be able to score a line under this and walk away with my head high.

If anyone reads this, take one thing from it. Redundancy insurance might be expensive but its an absolute life saver in a situation like this. G and I would be in a hell of a different place if we didn't have it. No matter how good a redundancy package is, the money will soon go if you have mortgage, credit card bills etc coming out of it every month. As it is the money from the insurance will more than cover all of the bills so I can take time,especially now when there are not so many good jobs around, to find a job that will give us the money again that we need and more importantly, that I really want to do.

I feel better having got this off my chest tonight.

Listening to...........Sting, "Englishman in New York"

See you later................

Guess we'll find out one way or the other shortly