In 2015, Sainsbury’s sold 281 pharmacies for £125m to Celesio AG, the then owner of LloydsPharmacy. At the time there were 277 in-store pharmacies and four located in hospitals, all of which were rebranded as LloydsPharmacy. As part of the sale approximately 2,500 employees, including hundreds of pharmacists transferred under TUPE legislation to become LloydsPharmacy employees.
All Sainsburys staff were entitled to an enhanced redundancy package and this valuable benefit transferred to their new employment at LloydsPharmacy regardless of whether it was written into their employment contract.
Many former Sainsbury’s employees continued to work at the same location, loyally contributing to the LloydsPharmacy business with a belief that should redundancy ever happen to them, they would at least receive the enhanced redundancy benefits that transferred across for everyone.
However, members impacted by the recent decision to close all LloydsPharmacy branches located in Sainsburys have contacted the PDA to raise concerns that the company are telling them “Enhanced redundancy is not contractual unless specifically written into your contract of employment” and without that confirmation, only minimum statutory redundancy payments will apply.
PDA response
Mark Pitt, General Secretary-elect of the PDA Union said
“After learning that their employer is choosing to make hundreds of pharmacists and their teams redundant, our members are shocked to learn that LloydsPharmacy is now informing them the Sainsburys enhanced redundancy scheme that transferred across no longer applies.
The legislation in this area is complex and the PDA legal team are considering the options available to challenge the company’s claim that it removed these enhanced redundancy benefits for all former Sainsburys staff.
Regardless of any legal challenge that may follow, the company always have the option to do what our members believe is the right thing. We call upon LloydsPharmacy senior leadership to reflect upon this decision and commit to pay those former Sainsbury’s staff now being made redundant, the enhanced benefits which they believe are due.”
PDA members at LloydsPharmacy located in Sainsbury’s will receive further communications regarding this issue in due course. We encourage impacted members to locate all documents in their possession relating to their employment at Sainsburys from around the time of transfer and afterwards.
Changes like this can happen at any employer at any time, and so pharmacists who are not yet PDA members are encouraged to join without delay so they too can rely upon the PDA for support.
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