Honda sets out its redundancy criteria for Swindon workforce (From Swindon Advertiser)

Honda sets out its redundancy criteria for Swindon workforce

8:30am Thursday 17th January 2013 in News By Leigh Robinson

THE 800 people who are to be made redundant by Honda will leave their jobs by the end of April.

Each member of the 3,000 worforce has received a letter from Honda warning that their job is at risk with roughly half of the 800 to go from the production line and the other half from the offices.

There are about 100 Japanese employees at the company and their status is unaffected.

In the letter to the associates Honda said: “There is a risk that the company will be unable to continue to provide work for a number of associates in both direct and indirect areas of the business.

“Accordingly, there is a need to consider redundancies across all areas of the business with a view to introducing a new operating structure from May 1.

“You are, regrettably, ‘at risk’ of redundancy.

“The company is conducting a full consultation exercise with representatives of the associates in the affected areas.

“But these are expected to include restrictions on recruitment, offering alternative employment elsewhere within the company, re-training associates, offering voluntary early retirement, voluntary redundancy and restricting overtime.”

The ARC, which is a recognised group of employee representatives for the purposes of this type of consultation will be involved, along with Unite, the union to carry on collective bargaining with the company.

“We are therefore proposing at this stage that consultation will take place via the ARC on a group basis, although we also plan to ensure that Unite the union is involved as consultation progresses,” says the letter.

“The company envisages the consultation period will take place between next Monday and April 22, although this may be subject to change. It is expected the first redundancies would take place on or after April 22.

Subject to consultation, the criteria are expected to be based on:

• Quality
• Delivery
• Company
• Standards
• Length of service
• Time keeping and attendance Disciplinary record
• Previous appraisal rating

Just how much the 800 associates can expect in their final pay packets depends on hours they might owe to the company which were banked during short time at the factory.

There is no overtime at the moment as associates to pay back some of their hours.

While Honda is slashing its workforce by 25 per cent the company still hopes to be employing just under 3,000 people in six months time.