Not true. You can do redundancy by performance. Possibly not by sickness (I'm not sure) but certainly you can do it by e.g. the number of formal disciplinaries or similar.
The only thing you have to ensure is that the criteria are objective and measurable so you can prove no bias.
Maybe so, but the long standing agreements between railway employers and unions (known as Promotion, Transfer, Redundancy and Resettlement, PTR&R, dating from 1961 IIRC) have redundancy on the basis of seniority in grade, and then on the next grade down. This is the default arrangements unless you can agree something different, of course.
I had a huge argument with the RMT about this years ago when a few dozen roles were disappearing. If you apply PTR&R rigidly, the people made redundant will be those who have joined most recently in the lower grades. (People without jobs in higher grades can drop a grade and effectively kick out another colleague). My proposal to the RMT was that a responsible employer (me) should talk to the employees first to find out what they wanted in the circumstances. It was my view that many of the more senior colleagues would want to take redundancy, whereas the more recent recruits (who were almost exclusively much younger) would want to stay to build their careers.
I’m sorry to say that the RMT refused at first, pushed by the full time reps, because ‘they wouldn’t be doing the right thing by their members by not applying the rules’. I said that the rules said we could agree different rules, and that was what I was asking them to do. Otherwise, we would be in the position where lots of bright young people with their careers in front of them would be shown the door, and lots of time served colleagues who wanted to leave would be made to stay. I suggested that the RMT go and speak to a few of those affected to get their views. Ie everyone would be unhappy. I may even have said “are you seriously suggesting that we do precisely the opposite of what most of our colleagues, and the people you represent want, to comply with an agreement that was drawn up over 50 years ago”
About 2 months later, and after much gnashing off teeth from the RMT, we agreed my proposal, and everyone got what they wanted.
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