TUPE, redundancy, change of location, flexible working - confused, please help...

dollyrocks

I work full time for a company that is now being merged with another. When I began the job, three and a half years ago, I moved from London to the location of the job, 70 miles away. While I was pregnant, I asked to work from home on one day a week, which was accepted. While I was on maternity leave, the office was disbanded and everyone began working from home, full time.

When I returned to work I made a flexible working request, to work full time but over four days rather than five. This was accepted.

Everyone has been working from home for over 2 years now (very successfully), and my flexible working arrangements have been in place for 18 months.

At a meeting today we were told that the 'transfer will take place in accordance with the TUPE regulations' and that today marks the beginning of a one month consultation process.

We have been told that employees (there are only 9 of us - well, 8 now as one was made redundant today) will transfer their employment to the company we have merged with on 1st June, with full continuity of service.

We are expected to now work from the office of the company we have merged with, in London. They have said 'we are open to discussing the amount of time required in the office on a role by role basis however expect this to be more office based than is currently the case'.

Office hours are to be 9.30-5.30 without exception (as far as we can tell - they don't seem willing to budge on that).

We've been told that travel costs will be covered for three months. The letter I have says they would like the employees to transfer to the London office 'however understand that for some, the travel time may be excessive. In this case any redundancy payments will bear in mind your contractual terms' etc...

This will entail a very significant commute for me - just under three hours each way. From what we have learned about the company culture from others (who were assimilated into the company themselves about 18 months ago) I suspect that although they say they are open to discussion about not always being in the office, they wouldn't be happy with all that much time out of it. The person who is now essentially our boss has made it clear that he does not approve at all of working from home, or flexible hours.

I am in a union, and I will be talking to them too, but the HR consultant wants to speak to me on Friday so we can discuss things further. I feel totally lost. For a start, I love my job, and don't want to leave - but if I add a six hour commute to my day I will not see my child, except on weekends.

They are citing economic reasons for being able to bypass the TUPE agreements. But it's very hard to see how they are justifying it economically, as they will have to pay for our significant commuting costs, and have mentioned renegotiation of salary once the travel expenses part is over in three months.

I couldn't afford to do this without an increase in salary which took travel costs into consideration. But I also cannot see how I can keep my flexible working - and this would mean that DH would either have to give up his part time work, which he does on my day off; or DD would have to go into childcare for that day. And, as I've said, I would rarely see my child.

I feel so confused and upset. I have no savings to fall back on and rather a lot of debt, so redundancy would be a very difficult option (and I would only get statutory redundancy pay, which would be a total of £780 due to my rather pathetic salary). I want to keep my flexible working agreement as we have structured our entire lives around that. I don't know what questions I should be asking or really what rights I have, and I feel miserable.

p00hsticks

dollyrocks wrote: »

IThey are citing economic reasons for being able to bypass the TUPE agreements.

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for the position you find yourself in.

I'm no expert but just as an employee, my understanding (which might be wrong) is that if your employer decides for whatever reason that they now need a workforce based in an office rather that at home, and that works set hours that they don't currently, then (depending on the current workers terms and conditions) the current workforce would effectively be redundant and they'd be looking to employ a new set of workers to meet their current requirements. Obviously it makes sense to offer the existing employees the opportunity to agree to the new terms first though.

I don't believe you can insist on keeping your job under your current terms and conditions. Sorry that that's not what you want to hear.

I don't think that companies are allowed to "bypass the TUPE agreements" as such, but I think that the sort of changes talked about could equally be made by your current employer even if a merger wasn't involved.

The best advice I can give is to talk to your union

getmore4less

How many of the others what to stay working from home.

They will try to divide you so stick together on this.
you needto go with the our norml place of work is home and thats the terms they are taking you on under TUPE, they need to justify any changes.


Is this a complete company merger/takover or just part(not clear why TUPE applies).

What does your current contract say about location and mobility.

the change to home working for 2 years probably make it home is the location but mobility clauses might be an issue.

Are they offering redundancy as an option?


This is likley to turn into a fight if the boss is against home working, you may have to challenge that at higher level.

bottom line will be can they let you all go and still function .

if a complete merger you guys working from home should be part of the deal.

dollyrocks

Thanks for your replies.

We all want to stay working from home (one guy would have a 500 mile commute!)

What has happened is that our parent company in the US has bought a company in the UK and merged us with them.

They are offering redundancy as an option. I do not want to be made redundant.

Thy couldn't let us all go and still function, realistically - we all work on a specific...project (lets call it) that is unique to us.

Andy_L

p00hsticks wrote: »

I don't think that companies are allowed to "bypass the TUPE agreements" as such, but I think that the sort of changes talked about could equally be made by your current employer even if a merger wasn't involved.

They can't. The regulations do specifically allow "economic, technical & organisation" reasons to justify redundancy following a TUPE transfer

getmore4less

You need to make sure the stakeholders for the "project" are on side.

Hopefully the stakeholder is above the "new" manager and not the new manager.

Also stick together as a group this will be the critical, sing the same tune
You need the current team if anyone leaves the project is doomed
madness to have us travel these distances.
etc.

Any other groups in the part of the company gettting moved over in a similar position, they need to be in on the situation.

One trick is to get them to leave things as it is by it being the course of least resistatance get union, senior management, HR, "customer(people that use your output)" etc all in on it make their life a misery over the issue pointing out it was orking fine before this happened and this no work from home policy came up(handy if it is just the new manger that has the policy).

Just don't get picked off one at a time.

You may win this round but I think you will find that the move to the central location will happen eventualy unless you resist sharing of the work.

getmore4less

One other point the consultation is to cover the issues and get them to make sure they can show the justification for the economic reason for change.

My guess is it might change from Eto reason to a eTO one. ie. technical and organization.

I think it would do you all good to get into a meeting together with the intereted parties, HR, manager, union, stakeholder for the project and ask some very probing questions about this no work form home policy.

if the group has worked successfuly for a couple of years then it will be harder to justy any ETO reason.

dollyrocks

Hmm. This is very interesting.

To clarify a little more, the 'project' is a monthly publication. The new company do other monthly publications. I'd say, we're not indispensable, exactly, but certain members of our team are almost indispensable to them due to their industry knowledge/background.

The parent company - which owned us first, then bought this new company who will now manage us - are based in the US. They didn't really know what was going on, as far as we know, but don't really seem all that bothered, apart from some sympathetic noises.

So we can ask them to justify the economic reason for change? We did try to pin them down a little on this at the meeting but it was all a bit fudged - can we ask them to 'prove' it more officially?

Yes, we have worked successfully for a couple of years, and we were changed to home working for economic reasons; it really seems like madness to change this now for economic reasons again - especially as they seem very hard to justify.