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

Redundant, who - me?

Redundancy seems to do strange things to you. Which is why I am sitting in my kitchen writing this at four o'clock in the morning. My mind is full of stuff and its making me toss and turn and to avoid waking my wife, the lovely G, I decided I should give in and get up for a bit. Daylight is seeping in through the windows and the dawn chorus is in fine voice. The view out of the bedroom window upstairs is across the garden to the bowling green and is actually quite lovely in this light as there is a long line of gold and pale brown across the horizon. Having decided to get up has immediately helped quiet the voice in my head and looking out across the stillness of the garden has calmed me in moments. I feel better already.

I have picked some music to match my mood and am just now listening to the beautiful, ethereal sound of the track " sacrifice" from the film "The Insider". The sound seems to hover about the room and feels like a call to the morning, a haunting instinctive hymn to the start of the day. At one time calming and restorative and, it feels, just a bit healing..........

My mind has been milling over the days events and it feels like I have at last come to a crossroads where I will be able to cut off dealing with my employer and start truly looking forward and getting myself sorted out. Its taken too long to get to this stage, more so because I have been waiting for a resolution to a dispute about pension funds.

During the redundancy process I was informed that I would be contacted six to eight weeks after leaving by the pension dept to give me my pensions options as I will be losing a final salary pension, which is a big thing when you are my age and have been working for the same company for thirty two years. Having done a bit of research I had found out that I could put a lump sum into my pension from my redundancy pay tax free and decided this was what I wanted. On bringing this up at what is jokingly called a "consultation" meeting, I obviously caught my head of dept and his personnel manager assistant for the process off guard as neither of them knew if this was possible. As I had discovered that as this could only be done as my redundancy pay was processed, I argued that it would be unfair to pay me off until I had the information to allow me to make a calculated decision, and so I was given a stay of execution for a week until they got me the information I needed. As it has transpired due to poor communication and blatant incompetence on their part it has taken them five weeks to get me the information and the forms needed and I found out at the start of this week that they were sneakily planning to make this wait part of my redundancy lieu of notice pay. Well to cut a long story short, I succeded in persuading them that this too would be unfair and have managed to get them to agree that my redundancy date will be as of today. So - an extra five weeks pay - which feels like no small victory to me. And another bonus is that I will qualify for another year of profit share. That should be worth a couple of grand too. What a result! Get it right up ye ya shower of B's!!!



Ah well, my tea is finished and maybe I can slip back under the covers for a wee cuddle and a snooze to start off the weekend.

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