Who Controls Selection under ‘Voluntary’ Redundancy? The Case of the Redundant Mineworkers Payments Scheme

Voluntary redundancy schemes which offer extra-statutory redundancy payments are often used as a mechanism for implementing redundancy in Britain. This paper reports the impact of one such scheme, the Redundant Mineworkers Payments Scheme of 1984, on the scale of and selection for redundancy in the coal industry. Formal agreements, and ultimately statutory obligations, which restrict managerial control over scale and selection in redundancy were bypassed by compensation offers made informally to individuals. It is demonstrated that, even under a scheme based entirely upon self-selection, the employer, through control over the structure of compensation, retains control over selection. The scale and selection effects facilitated by voluntary redundancy schemes have important implications for equity in the workplace and efficiency in the external labour market.