Administrators at off-license group First Quench have announced they're closing 381 of the company's stores and cutting 2,000 jobs after negotiations to find a new buyer collapsed.  First Quench owns a number of well-known high street chains, including Threshers, Wine Rack, Haddows, Victoria Wine and Bottoms Up.

However, Richard Fleming,of administrators KPMG, is still hopeful First Quench can shift "a significant number" of its remaining stores as "going concerns."  The Guardian reports EFB Retail may be one of the interested parties.  Supermarket chains may also be interested in cherry-picking sites.

"Unfortunately there was not sufficient interest in the 381 stores as part of the going concern sale, so we have no option but to close them," Fleming said.

Redundancy rights

If you've been made redundant recently, or you're worried about being made redundant, you should know you have a number of legal rights, including:

According to the Guardian, there's a good chance General Motors' decision last week to cancel the sale of Opel/Vauxhall to the Canadian Magna consortium will result in fewer UK redundancies.

Peter Mandelson met with GM Europe's acting chief executive Nick Reilly in London this week.  Reilly told him Vauxhall workers had a "good future" under GM ownership.

A man who worked as a project manager at construction firm Balfour Beatty has been given the go ahead to sue his former employer for unfair dismissal.

Alan Dransfield, 59, was employed by the company for over four years and raised concerns over health and safety in November 2008.  Two months after blowing the whistle, he was told the company wanted to make him redundant. 

Mr. Dransfield appealed the decision and was put on leave for five months.  His appeal was ultimately dismissed, however, and he became officially redundant in June 2009.

Mr. Dransfield has now launched a claim for unfair dismissal under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.  At a case management meeting on 27 October, a judge gave him permission to pursue a claim worth up to £300,000, which reflects his anticipated loss of earnings.

A spokesperson for Balfour Beatty commented: "Balfour Beatty takes whistleblowing cases very seriously and investigates each one following the processes we have in place."

In August, IT company Fujitsu announced 1,200 job cuts due to the difficult global economic climate.  A process of consultation with elected employee representatives of Unite union began shortly afterwards.

770 staff from the 1,200 initially targeted redundancies have already taken compulsory redundancy.  But Unite says up to 6,000 staff - nearly half of Fujitsu's UK workforce - are "at risk" of losing their jobs. 

The jobs announcement came on top of an ongoing pay freeze and plans to close the company's defined benefit pension plan to future accruals.  Unite says this would affect 4,000 UK employees and effectively reduce their pay package by an average of 20%.

General Motors (GM) has announced it will cut 10,500 jobs in Europe after it cancelled its deal to sell Opel to Canadian firm Magna.

GM has yet to say where the axe will fall, however.  It employs 54,000 workers across Europe, 5,500 of whom work in Britain for Vauxhall Motors.

The BBC reports unions in Germany are planning walk-outs in protest at the decision.

The unions fear two of the four Opel factories located in Germany could close under the GM plan, whereas under the Magna agreement they had received assurances that all four would remain open.

The German government, which had backed the sale of Opel to Magna, has demanded GM repay the 1.5bn euro ($2.2bn; £1.3bn) it loaned the company.

UK reaction

At Vauxhall, Unite last month reached a deal with Magna to limit any UK job cuts to 600 - and all through voluntary redundancies.  The union will now have to seek a fresh agreement with GM.

The man responsible for negotiating the deal on behalf of Unite members - Unite general secretary Tony Woodley, a former Vauxhall employee - was jubilant about GM's decision to hold on to Opel, describing it as "fantastic."

Over the past four months, we've taken a look at a number of different laws in the workplace. 

We began with unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, constructive dismissal and redundancy.

After that, we looked at retirement and age discrimination - including the default retirement age.

Next, we discussed sexual discrimination (including the gender pay gap); racial discrimination; disability discrimination; and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, religion, and philosophical belief.

We then considered working hour rules and rest period requirements; workplace health and safety; the right to paid holidays; and national minimum wage law.  We also discussed pregnancy, maternity, and paternity rights.

After this, we looked at the significance of work status and rights for agency workers.

From here, we analysed employee misconduct, whistleblowing, and bullying and workplace harassment.

We next looked at severance pay and employment contracts.

Tim Nicholson claims he was made redundant because of his belief in climate change, which he alleges put him at odds with senior executives at former employer Grainger plc.

In March, an employment law judge ruled he could invoke legal protection against discrimination and claim unfair dismissal, since philosophical beliefs are protected alongside religious beliefs.

Grainger appealed the decision on the grounds that belief in climate change is "political" and a "lifestyle choice," which should not be compared to religion or philosophy.

This week, the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) rejected Grainger's appeal and found that a belief that carbon emissions must be cut to avoid catastrophic climate change was capable of amounting to a philosophical belief. 

In reaching its decision, the EAT held that, unlike the position pertaining to religious beliefs, Mr. Nicholson would probably need to be cross-examined on his belief in order to establish it.

The EAT also enunciated a new five-prong test to determine whether a philosophical belief is worthy of protection:

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has announced plans to cut 3,700 jobs across its UK branch network in a bid to modernise the way the bank operates.  The redundancies follow a strategic review of the bank and will take effect from May next year.

Unite National Officer, Rob MacGregor, condemned the plans as "absolute madness" and said the cuts were being made "to fund the crisis caused by City bankers."

British Airways and the UK's largest union Unite have failed to reach a compromise over cabin crew job cuts and changes to working conditions, after another round of talks ended on Monday.

Hit by the slump in business class travel, BA posted record losses of £401m last year, and £148m for the first quarter of this year, prompting its chief executive, Willie Walsh, to say it was in a "fight for survival."

As part of the airline's cost-cutting plans, 1,700 full-time BA cabin crew face redundancy.

Unite says that if the plans are implemented, cabin crew should expect extended working hours, redundancies, the loss of career opportunities and new starters brought in at "bargain basement wages."  The union believes this will inevitably damage customer service and hurt the brand, "possibly beyond repair."

But BA insists the changes will not damage customer service and are necessary to ensure the airline's "long-term survival."

Generally, your job must disappear for you to be made redundant, but it can also happen if someone else's job disappears and they are moved into your job, making you redundant. 

This is known as redundancy bumping (a.k.a. transferred redundancy), which often happens when a more senior employee is prepared to take a more junior role to avoid redundancy. 

Redundancy bumping rules became a hot topic for employers this year, as the recession hit and they looked at different ways to cut costs and shed staff.

Bumping-related legal issues fall into two categories:

1. Unfair bumping redundancy; &
   
   
2. Unfair dismissal without considering bumping.

Unite, Britain's biggest union, has denounced British Airways executives for trying to "impose" contractual changes on 14,000 cabin crew employees and "introduce a second tier workforce on poorer pay and conditions."

Hit by the slump in business class travel, the airline posted record losses of £401m last year, and £148m for the first quarter of this year, prompting its chief executive, Willie Walsh, to say it was in a "fight for survival."

As part of the cost-cutting plans, The Guardian reports 1,700 full-time BA cabin crew face redundancy.

The Employment Tribunals Service published annual statistics this week for the year ending 31 March 2009.

They show rises in claims for unfair dismissal (up 29%), breach of contract (up 31%), redundancy pay (up 48%), and redundancy - failure to
inform and consult (up 254%).

An employment tribunal in Nottingham has awarded forty-six former Denby Pottery workers thousands of pounds in compensation after the company failed to consult with trade union representatives prior to making them redundant.

The workers' union, Unity, secured a protective award on their behalf, which is pursued when an employer breaches the duty to consult with employer representatives in good time prior to commencing a collective redundancy exercise.

The Mirror claimed yesterday that workers could be given six months off work on low pay instead of losing their jobs.  The paper claims the Government is considering various proposals, including one plan where workers would receive £128 per week - double the amount of unemployment benefit - which would be funded 50-50 by employers and the Government.

The aim of the plan would be to allow companies to cut costs until the economy and demand improves and then rehire people on full pay.  And if workers were actually laid off after six-months, they would still be entitled to full redundancy pay and benefits.

The Mirror claims the proposals have the support of both businesses and the trade unions.  However, the paper erroneously quotes Gordon Brown as telling the 141st TUC Congress this week that he was '"reviewing the issue of redundancy" in a bid to shorten growing dole queues.' 

Mr. Brown said no such thing during his conference speech.  He mentioned redundancy only once during his address, commenting that "every redundancy is a personal tragedy."

The 141st Trades Union Congress kicks off today in Liverpool. 

As reported last week, the TUC is calling on the government to reduce the qualifying period for redundancy.  Union leaders also hope to persuade the government to increase the the weekly limit for statutory redundancy pay from £350 (which rises to £380 starting October 1) to at least £500, and to ensure that future rises are in line with average earnings.

The current £350 limit is far lower in real terms than the original value of statutory redundancy pay when it was introduced in 1965 to ensure that employees are properly compensated when they lose their jobs.