If you're signing a work contract get a redundancy clause put in.
"Lots of questions are therefore being asked about the rights and entitlements of employees in this situation. It can come as a shock to employees, when they are made redundant, that they may have no entitlement to redundancy compensation at all."
It's pretty rare now days, unless the company really, really want's you they'll just say no. Never hurts to ask though.
It's clear from work I'm currently doing that many people are not aware of where they stand on the matter. Some are surprised/shocked when they find out there's no redundancy pay owed to them.
It's funny, I've seen the opposite thing - people have been getting redundancy and have been surprised at it or the size of it. What's clear from both examples is that people don't read their contracts (or they signed them so long ago they've forgotten).