Change to T&Cs - can they do this??!

[CaramelEmporium]

I work for a big company. I was TUPEd over a number of years ago and therefore have reasonable holiday allowance etc. I have recently been promoted, Slightly bizarre circumstances it was a restructure of the team with a couple of roles that were higher grade, of which I successfully applied for one, there was not the option of redundancy even though the roles we applied for were new roles. So to my question - I have been sent a letter advising me of my new T&Cs. I have effectively lost 10 days holiday entitlement and my working days have been changed from Monday to Friday to any five from seven. The pay increase I received does in no way compensate for these changes and these changes were never discussed at interview stage, they were simply advised as a notification of change in my letter from the company. So, is this allowed, and how do I tackle it? I should add I want the role but not at any cost! Also I have now been in the role now for six weeks. The letter advising of the changes came through about three weeks ago but my manager has been on holiday so I’ve not yet had the opportunity to discuss it. Where do I stand?

As it’s a new role you’ll be on a new contract which doesn’t have to honour your old T&C’s. Cynically I’d say they’ve potentially done it to get you off your old contract especially if you had good sick benefits etc.

This should have been communicated beforehand though and I’m not sure how it would stand with it being a restructure. Was your old job role still available to you?

Yes the cynic in me agrees. No my old role no longer exists. The job content of our old roles was split into 2 new departments. But like I say redundancy was never on the table either. I don’t want redundancy but I feel utterly shafted, not the mindset I want to approach the new role with.

Agree with MynameisJune, in my company we have a lot of people who have TUPEd in and a condition of them moving into any new role, particularly promotions, is that they take our standard T&Cs, which are usually worse in at least some ways than what they have. But this is completely clear upfront and there is information on the intranet about what those T&Cs are so they can decide if it is worth it for them. It does seem a bit sneaky that you only heard about this in the offer letter.

I guess your best option now is to speak to the recruiting manager and make it clear what the problem is, see if there is any room for negotiation (the fact that it was part of a restructure rather than your choice to apply for this new role should hopefully mean they are more flexible) - perhaps if there are certain elements that are more important to you such as fixed working days, try and work out a compromise? Or alternatively take the tack that you can accept the new terms but would need more of a financial incentive, ie higher salary, to do so? Ultimately they may say no, it's the new T&Cs or nothing, in which case I guess you would need to decide if you want to then turn down the role, which would probably lead to you being made redundant, or even possibly them trying to push you into a less good job? Do you know what would have happened if you hadn't got this role in the restructure?