Body Shop admits breaching duty to employees with ‘brutal’ last-minute mass sacking of some 270 head office staff at a moment’s notice

5 comments

1. First reported in the Independent:

   *The Body Shop has admitted to breaking employment law in sacking hundreds of people at a moment’s notice, The Independent can reveal.*

   *Administrators for the troubled cosmetics company made some 270 head office staff redundant last Tuesday, telling them over Microsoft Teams that they would not be paid beyond the end of the day and the company would not provide them any form of redundancy package.*

   *This includes at least 15 women on maternity leave or soon to have their baby, who will now only receive goverment maternity pay as opposed to the packages they were offered while Body Shop employees, according to one new mother made redundant last week.*

   *“When I found out I was pregnant, the good maternity package at [the Body Shop] is what kept me going and I know it’s the same for other mums,” said another woman, who warned the situation had “put a massive financial strain on my family” just weeks before she is due to have her baby.*

    

   *One employee who had worked at the company for 13 years said the sudden end to their pay meant their February wage was not going to cover their family’s bills.*

   *In a response to an email campaign by dismissed workers, administrators at the firm FRP Advisory have now admitted they did not follow “normal regulations” on properly consulting employees or their representatives prior to dismissing them, saying there was “insufficient time” to do so.*

   *Solicitor Nick Humphreys, of Penningtons Manches Cooper, said that while the email notes there was a tension between the duties owed to employees and creditors, the administrators do appear to be admitting to a breach of duty to employees.*

   *It is not uncommon for companies in financial distress to fail to observe their employee’s rights because of the duty upon directors of such firms to maximise their creditors’ returns, according to Tina Maxey, an employment lawyer at Ellisons Solicitors.*

2. They’ve admitted it and I expect they’re going to have just as much trouble about it as PO& did after admitting the same offence.

   None.

3. The Broken Windows theories apply to companies too. Once they see what P&O got away with, they’ll try it too.

   The government have made regulators toothless. A good regulator would be on the phone to FRP Advisory finding out how the residual assets are being apportioned, and requiring them to pay their staff before any creditors.

4. As long as you pay 1 month’s notice, all is fine with the law. Happened to me.

   So the company needs to pay 1 month’s notice to everyone they fired.

5. This is shit, no doubt about it, but it’s **also** another example of privatising the profits and socialising the losses, since the taxpayer will now have to pick the redundancy, holiday, and missing pay bills.

   This shit should **not** be allowed – staff should be the #1 creditor in an insolvency.