[Kirsty jenkins]

I have some questions regarding TUPE which is a mind field for me.

Without paying for legal advice £500 just for a phone call is crazy.

I have one a contract and some say TUPE would apply but I don’t think it should.

1.   The cleaners worked for the outgoing company since 2007.
2.   They were only employed on the contract since July 2016 for the evenings after the outgoing company was told that the client only requires 1 x cleaner working on the site for 8hrs per day rather than 3 x cleaners working 2hrs each in the evenings.

If TUPE did apply what is stopping all of us just before a contract is up for renewal writing new contracts for our longest serving employees and fixing them to the contract so incoming tender companies have to deal with the employees.

I am potentially left with 2 x employees, after consultation the 3rd told me he works elsewhere for the outgoing cleaning company so his percentage is more away from the client site.

I honestly feel the whole TUPE is very hard to understand and is a massive learning curve in tendering next time to ask questions first, but I only priced for 1 x person which is what the client wants. Not 3 x cleaners and the client also change the times of cleaning on the site. As you can work out making the 2 x staff redundant from 2007 is a massive cost. The employee contract for them is a joke and don’t even say any hours it just says ‘permanent hours agree’ I have be told that each cleaner has been working 10hrs per week on the contract since AUG 2016.

What’s everybody’s thoughts, mine is TUPE would not apply. I also know that the 2 x cleaners have been working elsewhere for the outgoing cleaning company after the contract changed hands to me.     

[daniel osmore]

I'm not a TUPE  or legal expert, but if I was in your position I would just assume that the newly transferred staff are covered by TUPE.  Unless your new staff have said that they do not want to work for your firm (ie they have resigned), you will probably need to treat them as if they have worked for you since 2007. Even if they maintain their employment with the old company on other sites, it is probably irrelevant from your point of view. Regardless of what the law says, as employers I think we have an obligation to treat our staff fairly. Why don't you just avoid the hassle and potential unfair dismissal penalties and just offer two of the cleaners redundancy or alternative positions in your company? I believe that they would only be entitled to 1 or 1.5 weeks gross pay per full year worked. Perhaps you should just put this one down to experience and move on.