Please help! Redundancy without pay, TUPE.

[FaFoutis]

If anyone has any advice on this I would be most grateful. My DH is effectively being made redundant without any redundancy pay thanks to a TUPE (I gather this stands for Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment). For his sake I'm pretending that I think all will be well but I'm actually very worried indeed.

He works for a big company who are outsourcing their IT to India. Almost everyone is being made redundant, with redundancy pay. A few English employees are being transferred to the Indian company under the TUPE law, with no choice in the matter. Pension slashed to almost nothing and into roles unsuited to skills. My DH is one of these (he has worked there for 15+ years) so unsurprisingly feels he needs to get out before the transfer - he has also had a taste of their management style which is not what he is used to. He's used to working independently as he's fairly high up.

The union are working on raising a grievance for him, but his line manager says this will 'burn his bridges'. It seems to me that the English company have a vested interest in transferring these few employees to the Indian company.

Sorry, I know it's long and boring. What we really need to do is get him out with some redundancy pay (or similar) so that he can start to look for contract work. How do we go about this? Should he do the grievance procedure? Has anyone else gone through this?

Aside from trying to be positive (we have 3dc and a mortgage so it isn't easy) I really don't know what advice to give him.

I did TUPE law a long time ago, but if they are transferring him his job continues, so he will still go to work and get paid. I understand him not wanting to do that, but at the moment that's how it is. He obviously has skills the new company requires.
If after a period of time they don't want him, they can make him redundant but his redundancy package and his employment is as if it were unbroken. So he will get it all then.

What is his grievance for? That he's being transferred but others are being made redundant. Does he do exactly the same job as the others, or does he have some specialist skills that they don't? TUPE covers the role transferring not the person if that makes sense?

I would probably move this to legal matters to be fair. There are some incredibly helpful and knowledgable people on there.

The only knowledge I have of this is I was involved in a large scale TUPE transfer and was a senior union rep at the time, but it's in excess of five years ago.

Thanks.
The grievance is for change of terms and conditions, and the role not matching his skills. Yes, he has specialist skills.

I get the impression that future redundancy with the new company is likely, they don't even have a base in England and are otherwise only recruiting contractors, so that's positive thanks Ratbag.

OK, I'll copy it there.

In the one o was involved with, six specific staff roles were kept, they kept same T&C's barring pension, and then after approx 12 months the new company made that role redundant. They'd taken all they needed and incorporated it into their own roles.
The staff walked away with their however many years service (in one case 37 years) at their old enhanced terms and were happy.
But like I say I don't want to give old advice out. I just remember how horrible it was at the time so didn't want you to go unanswered.

Thanks Ratbag, it is horrible but that gives me some hope at least. Maybe staying on to transfer is not a completely terrible option.

If his option is walking with nothing (which it sounds like it is). Then he'd be better confirming any enhanced redundancy terms are moving (im pretty sure they have to be) to the new company with him. His length of employment definitely continues. So if they make him redundant after 6 months, they can't just pay 6 months redundancy. It's whatever he had before from his company.

As it's the role that is transferred under TUPE, they should not be changing what he does.
Sounds like thy're trying to transfer the person but change the job description? Seek advice from union or ACAS.

The union have been a bit feeble so far, though they are shocked at what the business is doing. I will check redundancy terms, thanks.

Tupe being transfer of undertakings (protection of employment) means his terms and conditions, and service length, will be preserved if he moves under tupe. So if his pension arrangements are contractual then they must continue. That's what the law says should happen anyway- so if it doesn't then that's what he should raise a grievance about.

Do you have any access to any legal protection you could use for advice in the first instant, e.g. under house insurance.

Thanks for that idea Jar, I'll check.