Goodlord, the London-based referencing department, which provides tenant checks for a number of agents, has this afternoon made 18 members of staff redundant.
A company spokesperson explained the issues that led to the redundancies a short while ago.
The spokesperson told EYE: “We can confirm that we have taken the difficult decision to make a small number of redundancies.
“The Goodlord business continues to grow and we’re optimistic about the future, but the economic conditions we’re operating in have changed. The European energy crisis has impacted our energy switching service and, like all businesses, we are not immune to inflationary pressures.
“We have a responsibility to adjust our strategy to respond to these market movements and ensure that we are in the best position for continued growth over the long-term. This means taking the difficult decision to make some roles redundant, with 18 members of staff affected. These decisions are never easy, and we will be very sorry to lose these much-valued colleagues.
“The majority of our teams and 95% of our colleagues are unaffected. Services and wider business operations will be operating as normal going forward.”
Goodlord was previously involved in a long-running dispute with now former members of staff over wage cuts last year, which ended with nine workers having their employment ended by the company.
Up to 20 people employed by Goodlord undertook strike action in February 2021 in a row over pay.
The disgruntled employees instructed Unite the Union to act on their behalf, claiming that they were subject to ‘fire and rehire’ plans – a claim that Goodlord deny.
Goodlord’s now former referencing staff said last year that their pay would have dropped from £24,000 to £18,000, which is less than the London living wage of £21,157, while their maternity, holiday and sick pay would also be cut. But Goodlord insist that they were only required to pay UK real living wage, despite the fact that the workers were based in the capital.
Unite lobbied on behalf of its members facing wage cuts at Goodlord by calling on the Living Wage Foundation to end its accreditation of the London-based lettings software provider.
Following extensive negotiations with the employees, Unite the Union and ACAS, Goodlord was unable to reach a resolution with the team members involved in the dispute and they left the firm.
Good Lord, not a nice thing to do so close to Christmas, but that does seem to be the way these days. I hope they find employment soon.
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I am surprised that Goodlord were able to find 20 new intelligent people to carry out referencing work at below the minimum London Living Wage. Are they going to reduce cost by using a workforce based in India?
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Didn’t they raise £27m only 6 months ago? #profitbeforepeople
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