Overheard boss wanting to transfer my contract to outsource company help!

[makedoandmend]

Without going into too much detail - I work in a dept where part of my function is being outsourced (which came as news to me at the time - announced in front of others with no prior discussion). Now found out that there are discussions to transfer my contract to the outsourcing company. Am all over the place about it - but I guess forewarned means I can prepare for when I'm told. But what do I do? I'm the main breadwinner in my household and can't afford to lose my job but don't want to be taken for a mug.

Bump

They will have to consult with you if they want to transfer your employment, but even if you don't agree, they can still go ahead.

You do have protected rights under TUPE, so the new company will keep you on your current terms and conditions of employment, so you shouldn't (in theory) see any significant changes.

Thankyou for the replies - my worry is that the company possibly taking over the contract only employs freelancers so they'll want to transfer me onto a freelance contract as soon as they can. Can they do this?

Funnily enough I've just been on to acas (useless -get a solicitor but they can do it) and googling unions!

Without knowing the exact details I'd say it would be difficult to move you to a freelance contract without a bit of notice and hassle.

It's probably a TUPE transfer and as such, your current Ts and Cs would be protected. Ostensibly they could argue eventually that it's not economic to maintain you on a full time contract if the work does not justify that.

Re the free half hour legal advice - nothing is free. The lawyer's time has to be paid for. The free half hour will only advise very generically on the legal situation - and is unlikely to garner sufficient information to give useful advice. This kind of situation would be well worth paying the £200 approx to get a proper consultation. Money well spent if it protects your position.

(ACAS are not as useful as they used to be. The very experienced advisers have been largely replaced with call handlers working off a script)

Thanks that's really useful. I'll try and get some legal advice. I'm betting that any change will be announced in front of other people as this is what usually happens as my boss doesn't like confrontation. I doubt he'll even inform my line manager. Never worked anywhere like it before...

Our business is struggling and facing insolvency unless we lose some staff and associated costs. We currently hold a sub-contract with organisation X and delivering this contract is the work of two employees - well over 50% of their time. If we contact this company and say we can no longer afford to deliver this contract because of financial problems, is organisation X obliged to take it back and Tupe our staff over? The other option is that we go out of business but there isn't enough money to pay full redundancy or notice etc, so all staff would have to apply for statutory redundancy help from the government

Sorry,meant to start a new thread,not add a post!