being made redundant under tupe

crash2011

hi
we were taken over under tupe in feb.the new company is now trying to make all 6 of us redundant.my contract states that i must take a vehichle home with me and my place of work is my home address.they have have now said that we do not get to take a vehichle home and i will have to travel 45 minutes to my new place of work.they are also changing my hours of work to 4:30pm to 8:30am forcing me to work nightshift and so making it impossible for me to have more than 4hours 30 mins sleep per day.they are trying to say this is an ETO reason but i have come up with a solution so that i could carry on with my existing way of working and save them more money than their way.they are not interested.when asked if the redundancies were due to our wage level they said yes.anyone got any ideas as to what to do?
thanks

Jarndyce

I don't understand - are they making you redundant or changing your hours? Or changing your hours before they make you redundant? What is your shift pattern? You are working one 16 hour shift that's all we know.

In a nutshell, TUPE only protects terms and conditions across the point of the transfer, and covers events which are directly linked to the transfer. If, five months on, the employer wants to reorganise,you would be hard pushed to link that directly to the transfer I would have thought. Providing the follow the correct procedures redundancies could well be lawful.

Tell us more.

crash2011

my contract says my hours of work per week is 40 hours and these are flexible.also it is my decision as and when i do these hours.
i have a no-mobility clause in my contract and i have to be allowed to take a vehichle home with me.they are saying this is not economical for them.so i was given a choice of voluntary redundancy or i had to take what they were offering which is that i would not get to take a van home with me.i would have to have a new place of work and that i would have to pick the van up at 8:30am and have it back before 4:30pm.as i usually do at least 10 hours per day this would not be possible as it only gives me 8 hours to do my work which i pointed out to them.their new offer is now i pick the van up at 4:30pm and have it back by 8:30am.(this will force me to work through the night).to do what they want i would finish work about 3:00am,would not be able to go to sleep as i would have to get the van back to them for 8:30am(leave my house at 7:00am to do this).i would drop the van off at 8:30am and would not get home until 10:00.this would give me 5 hours sleep per day max before i would have to leave 3:30 to pick the van up again.we asked if they were trying to get rid of us because of our wage level and they said yes.they have also not offerred redundancy to any of their current staff just the 6 transfered over under tupe.

SarEl

If there is a genuine ETO reason then they can offer redundancy. I have to say that I am not clear whether there is or not. That would be up to a tribunal to decide anyway. TUPE is not an automatic protection of jobs or terms and conditions, and without understanding their arguments for an ETO justification we couldn't really help.

crash2011

they say its because they are losing money and increased overheads.(we collect clothing for a charity and the amount we collect each week has increased a lot)they also want to double-shift the vans so we would have worked during the day and their existing workers would work in the evening thus saving money.to double shift my van it means when i pick the van up to start work i have to travel back passed my house so what that would cost in fuel for the year is more than it would cost to let me carry on doing it the way i am doing it now.i even offered to buy my own van so they wouldn`t have to double shift a van,saving on the fuel cost of driving back passed my house and saving on the wear and tear of the van if two people were using it.this was turned down with no explanation.

Jarndyce

crash2011 wrote: »

they say its because they are losing money and increased overheads. (we collect clothing for a charity and the amount we collect each week has increased a lot)they also want to double-shift the vans so we would have worked during the day and their existing workers would work in the evening thus saving money.to double shift my van it means when i pick the van up to start work i have to travel back passed my house so what that would cost in fuel for the year is more than it would cost to let me carry on doing it the way i am doing it now.i even offered to buy my own van so they wouldn`t have to double shift a van,saving on the fuel cost of driving back passed my house and saving on the wear and tear of the van if two people were using it.this was turned down with no explanation.

That sounds like a genuine ETO reason to me.

SarEl

Jarndyce wrote: »

That sounds like a genuine ETO reason to me.

I'm afraid it sounds like one to me too. I believe they have cause to change the terms and conditions. No tribunal would ever insist on the rights of some workers over the possible jobs of all of them - if the company is loosing money by the current practice then it is an ETO reason to change the practices.

crash2011

all the jobs will still exist.they have already replaced some of us with cheaper workers.we can prove they are not losing money but making profit.

Jarndyce

crash2011 wrote: »

all the jobs will still exist.they have already replaced some of us with cheaper workers.we can prove they are not losing money but making profit.

Even if you could prove that that particular function of the organisation is profitable, it doesn't mean that the company might not want to make it even more profitable by organising it in a different way.

Providing they handle the redundancies fairly, ie consulting properly and considering you for any suitable alternative work that might arise, I believe they will be acting lawfully.

SarEl

I agree. The amount of profit the make or want to make is their business not yours and a tribunal would not care. Employers are in business to make profits - not to provide people with jobs. They have changed the jobs - so they may have replaced you with cheaper workers - but not in the actual jobs that you have previously done because the terms and conditions of the jobs are entirely different (which was your original complaint). I don't think anyone is telling you that this is fair - but is very likely appears to be lawful, which is a different matter. The bottom line is that they have provided a valid ETO for the change to TUPE'd jobs and you can either accept the new job or take redundancy, but I am struggling to see any legal case for you here.

crash2011

i thought you could not make someone redundant if their job still exists?