[rob thomas]

Looking for some advice please!
Had a contract for four years cleaning doctors surgery, was given one months notice as they were looking to cut costs etc....
Approached by manager to ask if they could keep my cleaner as new company were willing to take her on?
I refused as she has been wif me for five years etc...
Find out today that they approached cleaner and offered her chance to stay?
She also does one other place for me, do I have a case to take them to tribunal or ?
Advice welcome please!!!!!!!!!

[Scoop]

Rob

I know how hard this must be as it hits your professional pride as a cleaner as well as your balance sheet.

Firstly I would guess that this is no reflection on you. It is just a missive from upstairs to save money wherever possible (except on their own Michelin Man-like salaries.)

Personally I would let it (and her) go. I've been there (in a previous life) and the Court route will be far more costly and stressful than finding a replacement customer.

As a small case in point my wife is a Midday Supervisor (Dinner Lady) at a local school. They sometimes have pizza for lunch and the girls have to cut the pizza with one of those pizza wheel thingys. Unfortunately the pizza wheel broke and so they dispatched the Deputy Head to Asda to get a new one. This gal is probably on £40 an hour. After an hour (ie £40) she came back trumpeting that she had found a new pizza wheel for 68p and just think of the saving that the school had made.

It broke after 5 pizzas. 

We live in the real world. Many people don't.

[garyj]

Looking for some advice please!
Had a contract for four years cleaning doctors surgery, was given one months notice as they were looking to cut costs etc....
Approached by manager to ask if they could keep my cleaner as new company were willing to take her on?
I refused as she has been wif me for five years etc...
Find out today that they approached cleaner and offered her chance to stay?
She also does one other place for me, do I have a case to take them to tribunal or ?
Advice welcome please!!!!!!!!!

Not heard of TUPE then? The new company HAVE to offer her the job!

[Denise l]

They are obviously happy with the cleaner and standards then, so why dont you offer to re-visit your costings and see if you can lower their service charge. Undercut the other company.

[rob thomas]

Ta scoop sensible advice but I am just annoyed at the way they have gone about it!
Should I give the cleaner the elbow from the other office that she cleans for me??
Lack of loyalty cos I did offer her another job to match the hours she would have lost!

[A P T]

Is it not the case that, if the cleaner stayed, she would be TUPE'd across to the new contractor ?, if not, then in your T&C's on this particular contract, do you not have the standard condition that, should the client terminate the agreement and retain the existing staff, your compensation is 6, or 12 months salary ?, or even 3 !

Seems like in all these cases, if they've decided to change their arrangements, there's not much you can do about it, but hopefully, your T&C's have given you at least some recompense.

and yep, I would ged rid of her off the other contract !

[Rick Ward]

TUPE does not necessarily come into this scenario. If they are simply giving the job to some other company then there is no obligation to administer TUPE, also not all tenders or contracts are subject it , despite what a lot of people believe. Much depends on whether this worker is employed and what you have in the employment contract, but certainly if she goes with the new company you have the right to change the contract as to the other work. You cannot stop her from going nor can you prevent them from approaching her, and there  is no legal contract possible to enable that in this country.  Hairdressers used to try that but it has no legal legs!!
It gets quite complicated and probably it is best just to accept it, I do understand the frustration though as doubtless you have the job nicely organised and the cleaner trained etc but you probably wouldn't stand a chance in court.
Average earning for a GP in the UK about £110,000 by the way.