Redundancy at work is not a reason to panic yet. First, you should check how legal this procedure is in your company. Igor Shavrov, a lawyer who manages the Shavrov and Partners law firm, tells how to act in this situation and how to emerge victorious from it.
Part 1 of Article 40 of the Labor Code (KZOT) states that an employee may be dismissed due to downsizing or downsizing. Downsizing is when, let's say, there are five lawyers in a department, and three of them are fired. And staff reduction - when employees of different specialties are fired at the same time - for example, a manager, accountant, cleaner, etc.
There are two types of fired — it depends on whether your company has a trade union or not. If a trade union exists, it is necessary to notify it and obtain permission from it. At the same time, the employer needs to argue why he is dismissing the employee, in what terms, what compensation he gives, and only after the consent of the trade union can an order for dismissal be issued. After that, also with the consent of the trade union, the Employment Center is notified and the employee is dismissed.
In the absence of a trade union at the enterprise, the employer simply issues a layoff order, the employees and the Employment Center are notified, after which the employees are dismissed.
The dismissal order must state the reasons for the dismissal, the number of employees who are being dismissed, their names and positions, and the terms of the dismissal. If this is not the case, then such an order has signs of illegality.
The law also provides certain guarantees — some people cannot be fired due to downsizing. These are pregnant women, single mothers, mothers raising a child up to three years old, fathers on maternity leave, persons on regular annual leave, etc.
Participants in hostilities, liquidators of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, "children of war" and persons with special services to the state also have the priority right to stay at work. But in the event that two people have the same qualification, then they will leave the one who has a higher qualification, or, in descending order: people who have some merits, patents, skills, etc. Therefore, it is very important to immediately inform your employer about your benefits when hiring. This may help you in the future.
The employee must be notified of his dismissal personally - and no later than two months before the event. For civil servants, this period is 30 days. If the employee is notified in less time, then this is a strong reason for challenging such an order, however, as the Supreme Court explains, this should not be the only reason for such an appeal.
According to the law, the procedure for notifying an employee about dismissal should take place as follows. The employer must give you an order about the future dismissal with all the remarks listed above, and the employee must sign it and must indicate the date when it was handed over for review. In addition, there is an interesting guarantee for a person who is laid off due to downsizing: the employer is obliged to offer such an employee another vacancy that matches his qualifications. If the employer does not do this, this is an iron ground for appealing the dismissal order.
And only after two months, if the employee is not suitable for the vacancy offered by the employer, the day of dismissal comes. The employee must be given an employment book, make a calculation, and he has guarantees - first of all, the right to receive unemployment benefits, and secondly (and few people know about this), the person can return to his company within a year, if there there will be a vacancy that suits him.
If, after reading this, you realized that your rights were violated during the dismissal process, then you have the right to appeal to the court, however, the statute of limitations in such cases is only 1 month after the issuance of the employment book or dismissal order and your writing on this order. On the other hand, the onus of proving the legality of such a dismissal by law is entirely on the employer, not on you.
