HR Focus
A tale of two TUPEs
With the Government asking for your thoughts on the Transfer of Undertakings, Annabel Kaye, Managing Director of HR and employment law specialists, Irenicon, takes a Dickensian look at
the pros and cons of a fresh round of changes. Today I am going to tell you a story. Listen and pay attention, children, because there is going to be a test at the end. Once upon a time, a group of people in Europe thought it wasn’t fair that staff got fired when a business was sold. They also thought staff ought to be told in advance what was happening and what it would mean for them.
This resulted in the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 (TUPE). This was a good thing because lots of people didn’t get sacked. This was a bad thing because the new boss couldn’t just cut everybody’s pay. It can be hard to tell a good thing from a bad thing, so you are going to have to pay attention.
It turned out that the Dutch have ways of doing business, like renting a business, that don’t really exist
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in the UK. The Germans had their own way of doing things, and so it went on. Workers complained to the judges, saying they should keep their jobs when the business hadn’t been sold but their employer had changed. The judges said that even one part- time cleaner could keep their job when their employer changed if they were an ‘organised grouping’.
Even the Germans, who are very good at being organised, were surprised. Everyone had to scratch their head about TUPE. This was a good thing because it was fairer that all these business transfers were covered in the same way. This was a bad thing because it meant that it was hard for the boss to come up with a way of getting out of it all. Bosses in the UK wanted certainty and ‘a level playing field’, although nobody had any as they had already been sold off years ago. The Government made new TUPE
Regulations in 2006 which made it clear that the judges had been right.
All sorts of service industries, from FM to PR, were covered by the service provision changes (SPC). This was a good thing because people could stay in their old jobs without being sacked or receiving pay cuts. This was a bad thing because the new boss couldn’t cut everybody’s pay. A new government arrived. They said it would be a good thing for the bosses to be able to fire people more easily or cut their pay. Sacking people would reduce unemployment, and cutting their pay would encourage them to spend more money in the shops. Reducing unemployment and improving the economy are good things.
The Government is asking for comments on making TUPE apply to some transfers and not others. This
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