TUPE and reduction of hours

silverjay

Bit of a complicated situation.

In 2008 my original employers were elderly wanting retirement, one was ill and has since passed. Some of the guys who worked for the company got together to take over. A new company was formed to continue the work/contracts. Apart from the new directors only two members of staff were kept on myself in the office and a pipe fitter. The other staff were either forced to take retirement or made redundant.

I was left as the only admin/office staff running all admin/accounts/payroll etc. No letters regarding the transfer were ever received. No new contract have been issued. The guys who took over never spoke with me regarding my employment prior to the takeover. The only conversation I had was with one of my original employers who basically said "you are staying, ***** (my other office colleague) is going, there will be less work so you will be able to cope with it on your own".

There was a brief conversation with the new guys once my office colleague left regarding hours which remained at 37.5 but were switched from 9-5 mon-fri to 8.30 - 5.00 mon-thurs and 8.30 - 2.30 on fridays. The previous director suggested that my salary should be increased as I was taking on additional work and the new guys said they would do this January 2009.

A job is a job so I continued working there. No pay rise has been forthcoming and in the meantime I have taken on more and more work as instead of the amount of work decreasing they have increased the turnover and the amount of staff and are operating at a higher level than the old company. I also now do pricing, servicing records and health & safety documentation in addition to the admin/accounts. I have raised the salary rise issue on several occasions and am always fobbed off and it has got put aside again and again.

Finally last week I corned one of my new directors and asked him about this pay rise and he is now turning around and saying that if they don't get renewal of our main contract they may not be able to keep me employed full time and this is why my salary hasn't been increased. They have also intimated that my salary, which hasn't been increased since 2006, is a good rate for the job. Which is a whole other issue as there have been several industry increases which have not been passed on which means my current salary is about 3K less than it would have been.

So my question is when does my job become redundant? As my original contract began in 1995 and was for 37.5 hours per week by how much can they reduce my hours for "economic" reasons?

I did make a call to ACAS regarding this but unfortunately I got an operator who wasn't much help just read out details from what is on the website and said I would need to consult with them regarding the hours and whether it is a case of constructive dismissal but couldn't quite tell me exactly what constitutes "constructive dismissal" in this case.

I am struggling to cope on the salary I am on so there is no way I can afford to have my hours drastically reduced. I also think they are just making excuses not to pay me any more and are hoping I will leave of my own accord so that they don't have to stump up the 20 weeks redundancy pay I would be entitled to. I think they would be quite happy for a school leaver to come in and do what I do, rather than pay me an adequate rate for the 30 years experience I have.

If anyone can help regarding the redundancy/constructive dismissal issue I would appreciate it.

Many thanks.

Savvy_Sue

Unless they don't land that contract, it doesn't sound like a redundancy situation.

Are you looking for other jobs? I would have been by now.

ceridwen

Agree- it does look like you need to look for another job.

It sounds as if they want you out and someone else in on the terms and pay the new people have decided. They really want the salary for your post to be at a lower level (I expect they have a figure in their minds as to what they would really like to pay for your job....). I think they will carry on not giving you any rises of any description until such time as your salary has been "frozen" down to what they would pay a new entrant.

If you look at similar jobs going in your area now and work out what the lowest-paid of those jobs are offering - then I expect that that is the level they are trying to cut your salary down to
(ie if that lower-paid job elsewhere pays £18,000pa for the sake of argument and the norm for your type of job is £20,000 and you are actually on £21,000 in your current job = reckon they really want your job pay cut to £18,000pa and you will see the £18k job have a cost of living rise for however many years it takes to bring it to the £21k figure you are currently on - and you will STILL be on that £21k and therefore your pay will have been cut to the level of that lowest-paid job.

At that point they start giving you your rises again presumably).

IYSWIM

It could take them a while to cut your pay back to the equivalent to that "lowest-paid job" - but I think that is what they are aiming for by the sound of it.

******************

Meanwhile the standard salary holders could find their employer doing the same to them and so on and so on - and you end up with a whole group of employers "in a race to the bottom"....

SueC_2

TUPE only protects your terms and conditions at the point of transfer. From that point onwards your new employer has as much right as your old employer would have done to 'negotiate' your terms and conditions in whatever way they see fit.

Redundancy only comes into play when your role ceases to exist, although I'm not sure exactly where the boundaries lie, and perhaps you should give ACAS another go and hope for someone more knowlegeable.

What I do know is that they can't make you redundant, then take on a school leaver to do exactly the same job but on a lower rate of pay (although they can do this if you leave of your own free will). What they can do however is, for example, make the role of Office Manager redundant, but then recruit a Secretary, who will carry out a lot of similar duties, but with less responsibility / authority.

Rightly or wrongly, not many companies pay for 'experience', in fact under Age Discrimination rules, they can't. They should pay on the ability of someone to do the job. If a school leaver can do the job, then you have no right to claim a higher rate of pay just because you've been doing it for 30 years. Of course, there are companies who hand out annual increments, so by default if you are there 30 years you end up earning more than someone who's only been there two, but this is categorised as being due to 'length of service' not 'experience'.

It's all a bit of a minefield!