Nothing personal
02.03.09 - John from unionstogether
I was told that it was nothing personal. It's not how it felt. Being made redundant was a horrendous experience - one I'll never forget. And as the recession bites I know that it will affect an increasing number of us. So I'm writing to ask for your help in making redundancy pay fairer.
You see, instead of statutory redundancy pay being based on how much a person earns, it's actually capped at a maximum of three hundred and fifty pounds a week. So although I was earning five hundred quid a week when I was made redundant, I wasn't entitled to redundancy pay based on this amount - and I lost about a third of my entitlement.
This doesn't seem fair to me - so I've just emailed my MP to ask them to support a Bill in Parliament which will change the law to make redundancy pay fairer by linking redundancy pay to average weekly earnings rather than some arbitrary figure. You should do the same -
http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/fairplay
Now I'm not a millionaire but I do believe in fair work for fair pay. Before I was made redundant I'd been at the same company for over 16 years, learnt a trade as an electrician and was earning about thirteen pounds an hour. But the system failed me.
When Statutory Redundancy Pay was first introduced, the cap was worth more than double the weekly wage. But because it hasn't been increased with inflation, it's now worth only half of average pay. Lindsay Hoyle MP is trying to fix this broken system - but he needs our help.
To get fair redundancy pay we need to get MPs to support his Bill. And to do that, we as constituents need to write to our MPs to tell them how important fair redundancy pay is. There's a really easy way of doing this - just follow this link:
http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/fairplay
There's a model email for you to send - but feel free to edit it any way you want. The whole process will only take you a couple of minutes.
I'll never forget how difficult being made redundant was. I hope you never have the same experience. But in this shrinking economy redundancy will affect more and more of us. It's time to make it fair.
http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/fairplay
Thank you,
John
Unions Together
