(continued)
The reply said.
"Thank you for your reply, this obviously means that you don't want the consultation to end so we can now re-open it- next meeting Thursday"
This in itself got a lot of peoples backs up. The staff are now divided (Which you can imagine is what they want) We all want our notices so we can go and find work. I myself have officially not got a job yet! But some staff are needing their letters by the end of the week so they can start jobs immediatley. (Otherwise they any rights to the statutory offered)
So the consultation is back on.
It is now Thursday and the only matter to discuss is the request we brought up- can the governers ask that the ex gratia payment be added to pat of the debt bought up by the receiving organisation.
The official response from the governors is.....NO. They will not even consider it. This made no sense seeing as they agreed the principle of ex gratia last meeting, unless of course there was already an offer on the table where the zero cash transfer was going to happen so it didnt matter if they agreed the principle or not- there was going to be no cash for it anyway.
The reason given for the no was that if they added it to the debt it would make the deal harder to sell to someone, should they want to go down that route. And the only other option would be to go for a sale which could be a very long process.
And should there be no immediate sale, they would not be able to pay our salaries in August, September, October, November or December(Notice Period). This was the first time in the last few meetings that they have brought up the fact that the PILON may not occur and there are many staff who are needing that payment to get them through til Christmas- especially those that dont have a job in September.
Then came the issue of closing the meeting. If we agree to close the meeting we agree to the statements made- i.e. that the Governers were NOT going to ask for the ex gratia payment to be added to the debt. Or if we weren't happy to close the meeting, then the consultation will continue and Notice letters won't be sent. This is Thursday. The School was closing on Friday and a lot of staff need their letters of redundancy.

And here is where the implied Blackmail occurred....
If we agree to close the meeting notices would be issued, and the deal which is on the table will go through. And then we can get paid for the notice period. However, we will lose any rights to anything more than minimum, which we have been fighting for.
If we dont close the meeting, and continue to ask for more than minimum, than the offer on the table could fall through, they will have to fins a buyer which could take a long time and there will be no money in the pot to pay us our notice period.

And thats what made me mad on Thursday. I hate being forced to give up on something. To me that is blackmail!