I'm not convinced. If one enters into a contract for some work, agreeing to pay a certain amount on completion, and then when the work was substantially done, tried to enforce a change to a lower price, I think we'd all agree that was an attempt to retroactively change the contract.
I'm not sure how changing the rules on redundancy payouts shortly before making lots of people redundant is very different.
(On the other hand, I also have limited sympathy with the idea that capping the payout at a year's salary is a terrible hardship. I'm concerned that there may be other changes other than the headline one which means significantly reduced payments for people who would be getting relatively small ones in any case. Haven't done the research though.)
Nobody's suggesting not paying civil servants for the work they've done, though, only giving them less compensation for not giving them any more work to do.
Okay, fine, a contract which paid on delivery of stages, and had a penalty fee for cancelling part way through. Trying to cancel after the first stage without paying the penalty fee would still be a retroactive change of contract.
OK, an employment contract could be set up that way and/or perceived that way. But that's expecting quite a lot more than the basic you-do-the-work-and-we-pay-you stuff every contract contains.
I've never had an employment contract that gave me those kinds of rights, so I certainly wouldn't take it for granted that civil servants got them.
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I'm not sure how changing the rules on redundancy payouts shortly before making lots of people redundant is very different.
(On the other hand, I also have limited sympathy with the idea that capping the payout at a year's salary is a terrible hardship. I'm concerned that there may be other changes other than the headline one which means significantly reduced payments for people who would be getting relatively small ones in any case. Haven't done the research though.)
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I've never had an employment contract that gave me those kinds of rights, so I certainly wouldn't take it for granted that civil servants got them.