What is fair in the Work Place?

I had a call from my Bestie this morning to say its happening – they are closing down his place of employment and now want him to travel quite a distance to another one of their depots.

This has been a long drawn out process where the majority of the other employees were given redundancies nearly two years ago but he was never offered this, even though they were originally told this would be offered to everyone. Since then all the Management team that were negotiating with the employees have left the company and nearly all have gone to opposition operators all over the country. 

My Bestie’s biggest drama is, after being there 22years with full time employment and accruing sick leave he stands to lose a lot if he leaves. Moving to another company should not be a big problem as he has been offered positions many times but he would be casual not full time and their locations could also cause a problem as he is limited by law to the hours he is able to work due to fatigue. His co-workers that were offered redundancy were paid 3 weeks for every years service capped at 52 weeks which is in their agreement (redundancies are also tax free) which would offer him the buffer he may need if he has to relocate or have time off due to sickness. This whole transition has been as clear as concrete.

I was an employer for 18years so I can well look at this from both sides. At one stage I hit a very rough stage in my business (not the fault of my employees or myself) and had to reduce my staff. This action bought me to tears as I knew they had responsibilities and needed their income as much as I, but I had no choice in the matter. We sat down and discussed the problems the business was having and the reasons why and that I would support them in any way I could to find alternate employment; we all started to make phone calls and they went for interviews whenever they needed to so their transition would be as financially painless as possible. I was also working for a business that closed the division I was working in and they afforded me the same situation to which I was very grateful (this was a large multinational company not a small business like mine so the attitude can work in all facets of business).

I understand times are tough economically but I can see no reason nor need for companies with healthy balance sheets to treat their employees shabbily especially after 22years service.

What do you think?