journal article
LitStream Collection
Redundancy Rights Rights for Whom
1991 Employee Relations: An International Journal
doi: 10.1108/01425459110140373
The 1965 Redundancy Payments Act wasamended by the 1975 Employment Protection Actto give substantial rights to trade unions tochallenge managerial decisions on redundancies.These included advance warning of impendingredundancies, the right to make representationsto the employer, and to receive the employersreply. Cabinet ministers, introducing thelegislation, felt that it would generate negotiationseither to quash the redundancies or to providealternative solutions to impending job losses. Ininvestigating 74 incidences of redundancy, covering10,500 workers, it was found that these rightshave, for the most part, merely oiled the processof managerial decisions over redundancies, byenjoining trade unions to such decisions decisionson which they have no real impact. Rights for tradeunions, then, in practice translate to gains foremployers. An important caveat to this situationoccurs where an agreement on redundanciesexists, generally giving workers substantialbenefits, although there are still too many tradeunion officials and employers who do not wish tosign such agreements.