Changing T&C without telling me?

[Thatsnotmycat]

Hi, hope someone would be able offer some advice. Our company has just been transferred to a new one. During this process I have taken an internal promotion. It now appears that all my T&C have been changed to those of the new company.. and they’ve not told me about it. I only found out looking at my own pay/work portal. I’ve raised the issue with HR but they are dragging their feet offering me an explanation. TUPE applied when the transfer happened. I’m just wondering where does that put me. Can they just change everything without telling? I really want to go back on my old T&C and I’m worried that they will just say the change in contract happened as standard when I took the new role. I have email correspondence from HR from when I was offered the promotion and they confirmed my T&C wouldn’t change. I feel like they are now backtracking. Any advice gratefully received.

Thank you prh47 thought I’d stepped into the Twilight Zone there!

To change your terms lawfully OP they would have had to tell you what terms apply before you accepted the job, so you had an opportunity to decline. That would have been perfectly acceptable and normal in your situation

Absolutely. The core tenet of a contract is full informed consent with both sides entering into the agreement with full view of any changes such that they are not unilateral changes but ones both sides have signed up to.

The other aspect that puts the "new company" on shaky ground is that they haven't yet published new employment policies for full visibility of staff and the OP has been the first employee to be affected, and has been unable to refer to policies that don't yet exist. That ambiguity would be frowned on at Tribunal

Well you can disagree all you like - the information is available to the OP and there is no requirement to provide written terms unless it is a new employment- not just a new job. If the OP ends up at a tribunal, I think you'll find that it is they who will be in a twilight zone. Enforcing changes of contract is both legal and easy.

Here you go Lucy

You’re welcome.

”Enforcing changes of contract is both legal and easy.”

Indeed, it can be done perfectly lawfully and relatively straightforwardly, depending on the nature of and reason for the change.

But one of the lawful ways of changing terms isn’t to not even communicate the change to the employee.

I agree with flowery. An employer cannot change your terms of employment without telling you.

It's very simple.

It worries me too that people think you can be bound to a contract without understanding what the terms of that contract are, or at least being aware of where those terms can be found. No wonder consumers get such a rubbish deal at times.

Did any of the TUPE paperwork state that the protected terms were only valid in the transferred role?

TittyGolightly - That is irrelevant. No-one is disputing that the employer could try to change the OP's terms when she took the internal promotion. It is not unusual for an employer to try and bring TUPEd employees in line with their standard contract when they are promoted or move to a different role. The point is that an employer cannot unilaterally change the terms without the OP's consent and without telling the OP about all the changes. There is nothing the employer can put in their contract to get around their duty to inform the OP of any changes to her terms of employment. So, regardless of what it says in the TUPE paperwork, the employer has failed to comply with the law.

Lucy001 - I'm sorry but you have displayed a complete failure to understand how the law works and even the most basic understanding of contract law on this thread. There is a vast body of jurisprudence that makes it clear that one party to a contract cannot unilaterally vary the terms of the contract without the consent of the other party. That applies to any contract. This is first year law degree stuff. For a contract of employment, just in case anyone thinks they are different, the Employment Rights Act 1996 section 4 makes it clear that the employer is required, by law, to inform the employee of any changes to their terms. Your post at 12:25 today is wrong, as are all your previous posts on this thread.

In addition to flowery and prh 's comments, just to add, at no point has Thatsnotmycat expressed any intention of taking their employer to Tribunal, so I'm not sure why you laboured that point.

Your comments on this thread are aggressive and obnoxious. Maybe consider your posting style next time round.