October 03, 2003

Employments Rights Are For The Young

If you are going to lose your job in the UK, be sure to do it before your 65th birthday. Until then, you will get redundancy pay. Your employer can't just decide you are no longer needed and change the locks or the entry code, leaving you with no visible means of support. However, turn 65 and you can be turned onto the street. That's what the Employment Appeal Tribunal decided yesterday in overturning a lower decision.

You are entitled to the Government pension of course. As long as you have worked for long enough, you can get as much as £77.45 per week! (That's about $123.00.) That's £333 per month. Taxable, of course. Not that you will pay much tax on just under £4000 per year. But if you were making, say, £30,000 a year at age 64 and are suddenly making £4000 a year at age 65, that can be quite a shock.

Oh but let's say that you have an additional pension with your employer. But, oops, it doesn't fully vest until you are a couple of weeks over 65, because that when you hit the necessary milestone of service to the company. If they can get rid of you during that fortnight during which you have no employment rights, think of the money they have saved!

Oh, I forgot to mention the name of the appellant - the one that fought so hard and won. Was it some big mean heartless ultra-capitalist corporation? Not exactly. It was Her Majesty's big mean heartless socialist Government.

Posted by david at October 3, 2003 11:25 PM | TrackBack
Comments