No redundancy but no bloody job either .

[travellingwilbury]

I currently work as a carer for the council and have done for 9yrs . At a meeting yesterday (that I didn't go to) we were told that by the end of the year our jobs and contracts would be handed over to agencies .

Can they really do this ?
I don't want to work for a sodding agency , all the agencies that I have had dealings with in the past have been rubbish .

There is no offer of redundancy because apparently we are not actually losing our jobs we are just being moved to an agency .

I know I need to find out more info but tbh it does sound like they don't even know themselves .

Bugger !

don't know but my dh works for a council and we are worried too

trouble is as we know, the agencies can do as they damn well please

can you maybe work privately?

I have thought about doing some private work and I have got a friend who is doing that . Think it is time for a chat with her .

When I think of all the money they have wasted changing the whole system over the last year or two .

The most annoying thing is we were offered VR last year but some of us stayed and we were promised all sorts of long term shite which is obviously a crock now .

Good luck to your DH , it is a horrible time .

it is horrible, good luck too

Sounds like a Tupe situation, have a read of this section of the Directgov website.

Perfectly legitimate, and there's no question of you not having a job or redundancy - you'll still have your job as normal, but you'll just be transferred to a new employer, and your terms and conditions and continuous service should all be protected.

does this mean your holiday entitlement is protected flowery?

Thanks for that flowery , I have never heard of Tupe before , I have had a look at that and it does sound like that is what will be happening .

ssd yes it looks like any holiday entitlement is carried over to the new company .

Pensions however look to be frozen at transfer date and the new company has no obligation to carry on with them . There is no way on hell an agency is going to pay your pension .

I am going to try and speak to the office today and find out a bit more info .

I suppose because I work for the council you don't see it as a company do you ?

thats true

good luck again

Hello there. Yes, under TUPE your benefits are protected but not your pension. However all employers are legally obliged to provide a pension scheme for their employees so you should find out what your new employer has by way of pension scheme. I assume though that it won't be as generous as your council pension scheme.

Also have in mind that the agency workers regulations are coming in at the end of the year (october) and this will give agency workers with over 3 months service the rights to the same benefits as equivalent employees. Not exactly clear what will be included, but keep an eye on google.

Thanks tomato , I always think of agencies as only having people on temp contracts so it has thrown me a bit . Also they haven't even got an agency in line yet so it could be anyone .
After all the years of looking at agencies in this area as being pretty shite tbh I am shocked they have now decided to stop all in house care and just chuck us (and more importantly the people we care for) to the dogs .

I am also stupidly not a member of a union . Do you think it is worth joining now ? Or a bit horse and bolted ?

what have your union said?

Thanks fed up , will keep an eye out for any news on that .

ivykaty not a member and I don't know if there is much point in joining now just because I am in trouble .

I am more annoyed for others , as we were offered VR just over a year ago and some people turned down 20k to stay .

Give the union and ring and sort out joining if you want to belong to them - it doesn't matter if you think you are in trouble, thats not how unions work - you can still join. I know at least as a group we have some protection and manovering ability

Agree on giving the union a call and seeing whether they can help. By the way your terms are protected, unless you sign anything else, so they can't just stop giving you work/paying you. They'll need to give you appropriate notice for a start.

Once a new employer has been identified you might want to have a list of questions which your current/new employers can answer. For starters you could ask about pension, job security, redundancy terms. If you get together as a group rather than asking on your own then you'll have better bargaining power and they can't fob you off easily.