A mate of mine (really!) is about to be tupe’d under the same Ts & Cs, but, the new job would involve 6 hours of travel a day just to get to & from the office. The recipient company is offering NOT to change his Ts & Cs, but has agreed verbally that he can work from home & come into the office when required (expectation is one or two days every week). They are also agreeing to cover all travel & overnight accommodation expenses. The thing is, because there’s no change proposed to the Ts & Cs, the company could revoke this agreement at any time, insist he comes into the office every day, and if he doesn’t like it, they apparently don’t have to offer redundancy?? That last bit surprised me. I didn’t think your job could be moved 3 hours drive away with the attitude “deal with it or quit”. Any law geeks in the house? Cheers.

If he is under tupe there is IIRC some sort of reasonableness test about distance travelled. The usual thing is that travel is in paid time and paid for. That is the travel from his old base to his new base or from home to his new base whichever is less

One for his union rep

TUC / acas websites can be good sources of information.

I would be insisting on the work from home arrangements in writing and after he has been doing them for a while it becomes part of his contract under custom and practice

Its a good way to get rid of you/mate, as soon youll be fed up of the traveling and cost, and will leave , no redundancy to pay etc for the new company.

I’m no legal eagle, but I was TUPE’d about 5 years ago now, and although I didn’t have to move location at the time, our HR reps told us that they couldn’t make you move massive distances away… Same thing as Jeremy says: there’s something in the TUPE legislation that states something along the lines of a “reasonable” distance.

I think (but could be wrong) that the bit about not offering redundancy is crap. When you TUPE across, your service for your previous employer carries over, so if you’ve been employed by company A for 6 years, then TUPE across to company B, you have to be treated as though you have worked for Company B for 6 years. Unless you accept new T’s & C’s (often called “Normalisation”) from the new company, then your existing contract applies, including length of service and redundancy conditions.

BTW, my experience (and that of other people I know who have been TUPE’d) is that the company “inheriting” you will often treat the new staff like crap, hoping to reduce the headcount through making people want to leave… If anything is offered as an incentive (such as homeworking) then make sure that it’s set out in a signed, legally recognisable document.

personally I wouldn’t bother with one. Mrs B says she likes the bald look 😯

Not me BTW

Union rep TUPE 3 years ago
They are not offering to not change your terms and conditions under TUPE as they cannot or else it is constructive dismissal.TUPE means that nothing changes effectively you should not be able to tell the difference same hours same personnel handbook etc. What the ycan do re moving base an dtravelwill be ste out in that document from your original company assuming it exists
There is a resonable standard and 6 hours is not reasonable.
there is strictly no time limit to TUPE but assume roughly 3 years or thereabouts. We still cite ot to mgmt at meetings when they try and change stuff. They have to make you redundant based on length of service pre TUPE anything else is just not TRUE.
He needs to get the offer in writing and for it to have no effect on his current t & C if ot does and /or he refuses I cannot see what their defence would be for a constructive dismissal claim (hence why they have offered travel and work from home+ expenses etc).
As to whether they make it terrible for you such as make you work office every Friday who knows ask staff who work for them.
In my experience very little changed beyond some corporate logos and other sh1t.
read this

Thanks guys, pretty much as I thought, I think they’re trying to do him over. Pretty rude as they also dangled a £10k pay rise in front of him a while ago & now that’s also evaporated. I think there may also be tax issues if he’s not an official home-worker & gets his commute paid for (benefit in kind I would guess). lol @ bruneep 🙂

I was TUPE’d a while back and initially worked at the same location. After a couple or three years the office was closed and we were all moved to another office but only a half hour or an hour away at most. We did not get travel time paid but were given travel costs for, I think, two years. 6 hours, even if exaggerated, sounds out of order and worth getting some legal advice – ideally there will be a union and they will know all about it.

I’d second the bit above about new companies treating all TUPE’d staff like crap, and as time goes by it is harder to resist all the shite that gets thrown at you. Negotiated pay off is best solution. It’ll never get better.