'Fire and rehire?'

[Mr Creosote]

A friend of mine (I know what you re thinking, but it s not me, honestly!) works for a university, which is planning to make its staff move to a subsidiary company in order to force them off the old DB pension scheme onto an inferior DC one.

There s a news article on it here: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/25566188.ucu-warn...

Apparently something similar happened with P&O a few years ago.

He s not a member of the union so presumably can t get involved in any industrial action, if any is planned. But should he be seeking independent advice on this? What would you do in this situation?

ETA: Please excuse the really obvious and embarrassing typo in the headline

[StevieBee]

A company is permitted to fire someone and rehire them on worse terms. But it is a restricted practice and comes with many caveats, not least of which is transparency, consultation and that the reason for doing so is sound (i.e the company will go bust if they don't or more people will loose their jobs.

The onus is on the employer to ensure that they have followed all procedures correctly but the employee should equip themselves with an understanding of what those procedures and caveats are.

[Countdown]

Mr Creosote said:

He s not a member of the union so presumably can t get involved in any industrial action, if any is planned.

AIUI he can as long as the strike itself is lawful and he's affected by whatever issues the Union is striking about.

In relation to your wider point I've been involved in a few company restructures and the phrase that HR use as a general "catch all" for sacking people is "Some other substantive reason" so yes, what they're doing sounds legal.

[Mr Creosote]

Thanks for the replies!