Anyone experienced TUPE?

[tonton]

I'm almost certainly about to be made redundant and I understand from friends in HR that TUPE legislation will almost certainly apply to me.

I wondered if anyone had been through this? Have you moved to a new company under TUPE? or had your redundancy handled by a new firm rather than the one you ogrinally worked for?

Any experiences welcomed!

It depends if during the take-over the new owners signed onto tupe. It basically means terms and conditions are protected for a set period of time after a take-over. The company I work for didn't sign on to this as when they bought our place, they agreed to top up the pension deficit to get exemption from TUPE. You would need to find out what the terms of sale to the new owners were to see if you were protected. Also, a lot of companies are now trying to do the minimum as far as redundency goes.

Companies do not sign up to TUPE; it either applies or it doesn't.

If the company that sold the business in which you work was insolvent, it is possible to make some permitted changes to contracts, but otherwise employees have to be transferred with their contractual terms intact. There is no set period for which terms are protected - but they cannot be changed "for a reason connected to the transfer" without good reason.

As far as any potential redundancy goes, if that is "for a reason connected to the transfer" it may be unfair dismissal. It really depends on the circumstances. Do you have a union rep or an employee rep you could speak to?

We're not being bought by another company.

The client I work on is moving its account to another company.

All companies concerned are EU and TUPE-governed (is that the right term?) as far as I know.

Ah, ok.

So you spend all or the majority of your time working on that one account?

In those circumstances TUPE may well operate to protect employees. TUPE says that employees dedicated to that function will transfer to the new provider of the service and that any dismissal that is connected to the transfer will (subject to limited exceptions) be unfair. Therefore the parties to the service agreements (i.e. the client, the current service provider and the new service provider) will usually have an agreement in place to work out who bears redundancy costs (because the new service provider might not want the employees and the old service provider will now have no work for them). However, as I have said above, any dismissals might well be unfair (and therefore might result in larger settlements).

You should have a look at the Business Link site as it is full of useful information. If you are told you will be made redundant it might also be worth speaking to an employment solicitor to work out your rights.

Thanks Mrs Happy.

I am keen to hear from anyone who has actually been throught this themselves. have you been moved to a new firm via TUPE? What was it like?

Thanks!

Haven't been through it myself, only from the other side. Have a read of this site aimed at employees about TUPE for some more useful information.

What have you actually been told? Are your friends in HR working in the same company?