The Royals & feudal employee relations
The Guardian broke the story that many people working for King Charles at Clarence House have been served with redundancy notices during the official mourning period for the Queen. The notices carried the usual employment law rubric that those impacted might be redeployed into other roles or offered enhanced redundancy. The question remains why Charles, now one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, needs to make anyone redundant. Much of the work he had oversight of around the Duchy of Cornwall and as Prince of Wales will now be taken over by William who clearly doesn’t have people on hand to do it.
The story developed further when the Murdoch Times (15th September) that numbers of workers at Buckingham Palace faced redundancy since they had ‘death’ clauses in their contracts that stipulated that their employment ended with the death of the existing Monarch. It sounds feudal and it is. The same or very similar roles will exist under King Charles. No doubt however he wants to bring an entourage with him from Clarence House (those he isn’t sacking).
That in itself hardly speaks of good employment practices with fair competition for roles and a commitment to a diverse workforce.
Some Royal Employees are already unionised. After the events of this week, others may well be signing up. The reality behind the Royal pomp and circumstance is distinctly shabby
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