TUPE Rules....

utigers

My company wins and loses contracts fairly often. I happen to work on one for 75% of the year and then the other 25% of the time do a whole variety of different contracts (like most other workers).

Now the contract I work on my company dont want it or they will increase the prices from April 2016 to suit.

They have hinted I will get Tuped across if they lose it? Is this true?

My main gripe is I go beyond my duties in this role, I dont want to work for someone else I want to stay with them.

Thanks for any replies.

jobbingmusician

I think you may be in a difficult position. (I stress I am not an expert, but I thought I would kick start the debate.)

If your company loses the contract which pays the majority of your salary, how do you expect them to keep paying you?

If you worked 100% of your time on the contract which is (likely to be) taken over by another company, I would say fairly confidently that you are likely to be TUPE'd.

However, it sounds as if your current company uses you partly on the relevant contract, and partly on other work, as convenient to them. If the company which takes over the contract behaves in a hard-headed way, they may resist TUPE on the basis that you are not 'an organised grouping of employees'. (See http://www.rhhr.com/tupe-what-constitutes-an-organised-grouping-of-employees/ amongst many other internet references.)

It is also possible, of course, that the new company delivering the contract may want new employees, and be delighted to TUPE you in. Or that your current employer may want to redeploy you - but if they are hinting TUPE, this doesn't sound as if it would be the case.

You cannot insist that your company keep you in employment. You can insist on redundancy if they don't want to keep you and the new people don't want to TUPE you (assuming you have been employed by them for at least 2 years.)

utigers

Thanks for the reply, I'm a little bit unique in the sense of working 75% of the year on one contract, others have worked on it too. Potentially if you go by my radius of work in my locality 6 to 8 people 'could' work on it in the T&C's of our contracts. Losing this contract may leave a void in my area but its an area of 8 of us. The cheap option is sticking me on it and using Tupe? I don't want this to pan out like this really, which is why I doing the research now.

I've rang acas and they were useful to a level, where else do you get advice from?

Tom_Jones

If you work the majority of your time on a contract then you are liable to be subject to TUPE, also the company only have to go back 23 weeks to justify their decision.

If you work 75% on a contract then you would be eligible to TUPE if they lose it.

General_Grant

Tom_Jones wrote: »

If you work the majority of your time on a contract then you are liable to be subject to TUPE, also the company only have to go back 23 weeks to justify their decision.

If you work 75% on a contract then you would be eligible to TUPE if they lose it.

What's your evidence for this statement, please?

stevemLS

My understanding has always been that it is generally taken to be the "majority of work" basis that applies, the TUPE Regs themselves are silent on it.

The ACAS guide recognises the difficulty and discusses who it applies to on pp 10 - 11 of their guide:

http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/d/r/Handling-TUPE-Transfers-The-Acas-Guide.pdf

Every TUPE situation I have been involved with over the years has taken this approach.

It is always fact specific, so, for example if you had a team of 4 each of whom spent 50% of their time working for client A and that contract transferred, it might be decided that 2 would transfer to the new employer.

getmore4less

It is not unknow for those "in the know" to manipulate the staffing levels in the weeks prior to a TUPE situation to get a result they want.

If you want to stay I would be working more on other contracts and less on this one that has a year to go.

FBaby

Is your current role different to your job description that came with your employment contract?

utigers

FBaby wrote: »

Is your current role different to your job description that came with your employment contract?

Firstly thanks for the replies.

To answer your question. This year I'm being asked to do something that IS outside of my contract and it would benefit the company greatly and hopefully me financially. I agreed to this and said I would see how it goes. I would be working hard but I would near enough take full control of this contract in its final year. I'm now concerned about the TUPE rules, because of this.

To be fair I am the best placed person to do this but it sticks in my throat that I work hard for them on a contract that is very much damage limitation, then in a years time they say thank-you very much your getting TUPED over....bye.

Hence doing my research now.