Tupe

Ian1953

This is a complicated one so please bear with me!

I have a sole trader cleaning company and I have recently won a small cleaning contract that only requires one employee - me!

Unfortunately, the outgoing contractor has insisted that TUPE applies to the existing cleaner. He does 52% of his 37.5 hours on this contract - the remiander of his time he works on another contract for the outgoing contractor. This falls then under the 'assigned' rule in TUPE that means he now transfers to me for the full 37.5 hours even though the contract is only for 19.5 hours.

The transfer happened yesterday and now I am having to pay the cleaner 37.5 hours to do a contract where I am paid for 19.5 hours! I cannot obviously afford to do this as I am making no money at all.

I want now to reduce his hours to the 19.5 hours he was previously working on this contract for which I am being paid. I think this may fall under teh ETO rule (economic, technical or organisational) and that I can begin to conslut with him on this reduction.

Can anyone confirm that I am safe to do this and whether I have to leave a period of time before commencing this process.

Thanks for any advice on this.


Ian

F_T_Buyer

I'll comment, and I've just looked up what TUPE is as I bet most readers are wondering:

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1655

From a laymans point of view, isn't the issue between the old employee and the old contractor. I am assuming you are now doing the cleaning?

SarEl

You probably can - but with extreme care because you may be heading for unfair dismissal or redundancy! Regardless of how big your business is you should not do anything without legal advice - the cost of getting it wrong will leave you with no business.