Fixed-term contracts

A. Under the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002, employees on fixed-term contracts have the right not to be treated less favourably by their employer than comparable permanent employees. Assuming that your colleagues have been continuously employed on fixed-term contracts for a year or more, they will have acquired the right to bring a claim of unfair dismissal.

Employers often mistakenly assume that they can just get away with not renewing a fixed-termer’s contract. The situation you describe could well amount to the making of redundancies — that is, the need for those individuals has ceased or diminished so dismissals or non-renewal of contracts follow.

Unless all the staff, both permanent and fixed-term, who carry out the tasks for which the need has diminished/ceased are pooled for redundancy, the dismissals of fixed-termers alone will likely be unlawful.

Obviously, insisting that permanent workers be pooled for redundancy with fixed-termers will be unpopular with permanent staff. However, that is the law and your fixed-termer colleagues have claims worth pursuing.