Temporary workers’ rights

Q: My partner has worked on a series of temporary contracts for 18 months. The company is about to make 165 staff redundant; what are his rights?

A: As his contracts have been renewed, your partner will be treated as having continuous service from the start of his first contract.

Unfortunately, if he is made redundant in the next six months he will not qualify for statutory redundancy pay, as there is a minimum service qualification of two years.

However, if the company has a redundancy pay scheme that is better than the statutory minimum and pays out with less than two years’ service, he may be able to insist on receiving the same as permanent employees. He should also be included in the consultation process.

This is because temporary employees are covered by the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 (FTER), under which they cannot be treated less favourably than permanent employees unless the employer can show that the treatment can be justified on “objective grounds”.

As your partner has more than a year’s service, he will qualify for unfair dismissal rights if he is unfairly selected for redundancy or if the employer fails to follow a proper selection procedure; if he is selected because he is on a fixed-term contract, the dismissal itself will also give rise to a claim under the FTER.