As one who was recently involved in the acquisition of another company, with the loss of most of its staff, I take exception to remarks attributed to Alan Fitzgerald in the article 'Cream in the Global Churn' in
IEE Engineering Management Magazine December/January 2005/6. New regulations covering information and consultation of employees came into force in April 2005. Under the regulations, employees have a statutory right to information about and consultation on employment developments and substantial changes to the organisation of their work, such as a transfer of ownership. Failure to observe the regulations puts both the buyer and seller at risk of legal action from an employee. In our case, the seller had not informed his employees so we insisted on being indemnified against such an action.
The argument attributed to Fitzgerald is that employees won't work as hard if they know the company is to be sold. This suggests the answer to this problem is to 'tell them as you serve them their redundancy notices'? Does he think that employers have no responsibility to their workers ? Does he think employees work hardest for an employer who cannot be trusted to behave honourably ?
I have asked IEE Engineering Management to print an apology for these remarks as they could encourage IEE members to ignore statutory regulations.
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