TUPE / Place of work Redunancy

TommyNeedHelp

Hi,

On Thursday i was asked to attend a meeting where i was informed that my department (IT) is being outsourced and this was being covered by TUPE.

I was then sent a letter "

I am writing to you as a follow up to our meeting on 8th July 2010 at which I explained that we plan to outsource our ICT work to ****** with effect from 1st August 2010.
We believe that this situation is covered by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. This means that ***** must maintain continuity of employment for existing employees who transfer to them. Therefore your employment would continue with no loss of the seniority, entitlement or security which you currently have with this company, and you would go on receiving the same pay, holiday and sickness entitlement and working under the same terms and conditions, (excluding the provision of any pension entitlements that fall outside the scope of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.
You should be aware that ***** will undertake a review of the services to be provided post completion of the transfer and that it is their intention to provide IT helpdesk services to ********* from their office in ******, ******. Subject to your desire to travel to ****** there may arise a provisional redundancy situation following the TUPE transfer. ***** is committed to consulting with you should this eventuality arise.
So that ***** can correctly observe your terms and conditions of employment, we must give them sufficient information, such as your start date, pay details, copies of your contract statement and the employee handbook.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I would like to thank you for your service and contribution to ***** and wish you success in your future career."

This is the only correspondance i have received, but have been asked to inform ***** what i would like to do? I have been given 3 verbal options.

1) Resign.
2) Aggree to work for the new company (who will review their staffing needs accordingly.)
3) Agree to the transfer but state that i am unable to relocate to the location of ***** offices. (This is about 2hr drive from home.)

My only option is option 3, but im worried that as i dont have anything in writting, i dont know what to imform them of and feel that anything i write may void my entitlement for my redundacy pay??

Please can you advice?

Hope this makes sense, sorry for rambling on.

Thanks.

getmore4less

What is being proposed looks ok.

Take on the contract and people.
review and relocate the oppertin to central office.

I think they are trying to get a feel for how many might move.
thye canot cost the deal without an estimate of the redundancy/costs involved.

How many pople are involved
Do they need cooppertion and at least some to move to make it work

Now if everyone says they will not relocate without significant compensation what happens to the outsourcing deal.


Definately worth getting people together as a group on this.

It can be hard to predict the outcome and what other background thinking there is.

Do not resign.

I think I would stall/ignore the request for a choice for now.

Need more information on the options especialy the relocation and redundancy packages on offer.


Readup about the company they are proposing to use to get a feel for how they treat their employees.

TommyNeedHelp

Thanks getmore4less,

There are only 2 of us, and both cannot relocate for 1 reason or another.

The new Outsource company basically said, off the record - that they dont need us at the new site and they for woundn't continue to employ us - what does that mean? Will they then have to make us redundant?

What do i need to put into a letter to say that i am happy for the company to transfer, but am unable to work in the new location?

Im worried that i agree to something and therefore put my self into a bad situation.

Also who decides wheather the location of the new site is unreasonable distance to travel to work?

Many thanks.

getmore4less

That makes it fairly clear they are going to move the work to the new offices and make you redundant if you don't move.

I don't think you need to write anything they will ned o make you redundant.

I would ask for details of the relocation and redundancy packages(they should be reluctant to give these) and say you can't consider any options without knowing them.

With TUPE to transfer or not is not usualy your choice.

Note they may want some kind of transfer/training of their own people that are taking over the work, I would look at supporting this to give more time/money, the IT industry can be very incestuous so burning bridges can backfire later in life.

The other option is to look for jobs in your current company and not transfer but TUPE rules can get in the way of this since those working in the part of the business should transfer with it, but since only 2 of you it might be OK since it needs someone to complain..

As for the relocation and it being a suitable alternative(if offered),

If the distance, cost, time are unreasonable then that tends to be an easier case than just down the road, individual personal reasons can also come into play, things like child care.

I think 2 hours would be unreasonable if your curent time is much shorter.

A mobility clase in the current contract can make it harder.

I think it would be quite hard for them to avoid a redundancy on similar terms to those given by the cuurent employer or better.

This is usualy factored into the agreements that the old company pays any redundancies required after the business review has taken place(we know it hs allready happened), in this case it is a fixed cost of 2 people.

TommyNeedHelp

Thanks so much for your help getmore4less.

I now feel a bit more at ease.

Tommy.