TUPE or redundancy question

richy4 · 18 October 2016 at 7:28PM

My other half works as a Manager for a large airport company delivering services to airlines.

Her employer is withdrawing from the UK to focus on its other European operations.

It is currently in the process of dispensing all of its airline contracts to other service providers at the airport, however it currently seems only a small amount of staff (junior levels) will be offered TUPE. It is highly unlikely her role will be offered TUPE so she is currently preparing for redundancy (statutory).

Her employer looks like they want to abandon the business ASAP, to the extent that as soon as they have got rid of all their airline contracts they might possibly close up overnight leaving any staff not TUPE'd in ultimate limbo.

If this happens, what is the process?? She has said that she suspects this is what will happen and from speaking to her colleagues if this is the case, they will all have to prove their legal status to receive any redundancy payments owed, potentially from the government body which guarantees such redundancy payments in these situations.

Does anyone have any detailed knowledge on the process here, it is tricky to find anything applicable to this situation from general Google searches.

Any help much appreciated!

sangie595 · 18 October 2016 at 10:44PM

Sorry, but what do you mean that she will have to prove her legal status? And why aren't senior staff being TUPE'd? I'm afraid that we really need to understand what you are saying. Have there been consultations? And in all fairness - it's hard to give an accurate answer to something that hasn't happened, so anything we might offer will be a guess.

richy4 · 19 October 2016 at 12:28AM

Its unlikely any senior staff will be TUPE'd as the other service providers at the airport already have managers of their own in place, when/if they accept some airline contracts they will most likely accept the junior level staff as they are very much required to deliver the contract. Unlikely any managers will be TUPE'd with them as they will just make their existing managers look after a bigger team following TUPE of the junior staff only.

There has been no consultation formally, as her company are trying to offload as many airline contracts to other providers as possible before they will be in a position to ascertain what staff are remaining after any TUPE. As I stated above though, unlikely her role will be TUPE'd, therefore I wanted to ask what the official process is for redundancy in these type of scenarios?

Her fear is that as soon as the airline contracts have been sorted and as many staff TUPE'd as possible then her employer will try to abandon all the rest of the staff by winding the company up immediately rather than do a proper consultation and then redundancy process.

getmore4less · 19 October 2016 at 7:36AM

DO they have a legal UK entity employing these people?

To just up and abandon that leaving debts(wages and redundancy) payments could cause issues.
They should wind up by paying people off they can bypass the consultation if there is nothing to consult.

It is quite possible for people not to fall into the scope of any of the contract if they work on loads/none of them as would be possible with senior people or other admin staff like payroll, reception, IT...

I would look closely if there are any or group of contracts that are going to the same new provider and if they could justify being in scope as a substantial amount of the persons job is dealing with those contracts.

Probably won't help the keep job but might secure redundancy as the new provider will become liable.

MEM62 · 19 October 2016 at 10:00AM

It is possible that your wife's position does not qualify for TUPE. Those employees who's job function is directly related to one contract would be subject to TUPE because their job is effectively being transferred. If your wife is senior management then her job function is not being transferred with any one contract. After, all which one of the multiple companies that the contracts are being distributed to would she claim had taken her job function? None, as it is effectively being dissolved.

She needs to raise the subject of redundancy with her employer and find out what their plans are for staff in her position.

sangie595 · 19 October 2016 at 12:26PM

getmore4less wrote: »

DO they have a legal UK entity employing these people?

To just up and abandon that leaving debts(wages and redundancy) payments could cause issues.
They should wind up by paying people off they can bypass the consultation if there is nothing to consult.

It is quite possible for people not to fall into the scope of any of the contract if they work on loads/none of them as would be possible with senior people or other admin staff like payroll, reception, IT...

I would look closely if there are any or group of contracts that are going to the same new provider and if they could justify being in scope as a substantial amount of the persons job is dealing with those contracts.

Probably won't help the keep job but might secure redundancy as the new provider will become liable.

I agree with this. I'd also add that they couldn't simply wind up the company with outstanding debts against them - which existing staff would be. And they may be leaving the country, but I assume that they will still need some form of presence, and that means assets that can potentially be seized.

Rather than depend on guesswork and gossip, I'd suggest that a direct set of questions as to what will happen to these people would be a better approach. We can also provide better information about that if we have a real situation to comment on, rather than a "what if...". There are so many variables that a theory answer could be totally wrong!

TUPE or redundancy question

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