I now see that Cesare has high-lighted a couple of paragraphs.Not clear to me what is meant by " if your employer is insolvent but the organisation continues". The organisation certainly will continue but only in the sense that it is a crucial part of the business of the client ( my employer).
UNION related chat, reflections and experiences. Reps & members alike!
- Thread starter Treacle Toes
- Start date
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
If it's a crucial part of the business, then the client will transfer that undertaking back in-house or will transfer that undertaking to a new supplier. The affected employees rights are automatically transferred with the undertaking. The employees should follow the undertaking unless the undertaking is materially different in its new home.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
If it was brought back in-house, their employer would automatically transfer with it
If there were then too many people for the jobs available they would be at risk of redundancy but there would be a selection process out of the entire pool of people not just those that transferred in.
There is an information and consultation process pre and post transfer which is governed by the TUPE legislation.
That is really helpful thankyou very cesare and of course you too @Puddytat.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
i've heard of services being 'in-housed' - as in formerly privatised / contracted functions being taken back in to (for example) local authority, and TUPE would apply there.
again, sounds a bit of a grey area.
how is the service being provided at the moment in the interim between old contractor going bust and new contract starting? is an administrator keeping the old business going? is it not happening at all? is it being provided piecemeal by a number of small contractors?
again, i'm not a lawyer, but the key question might be whether the old contract is continuing or whether there's a clear gap between old contractor ceasing trading and new contractor taking the work on.
my line of work is buses, and a few examples i can think of (although not been personally involved in the last specific)
operator A buys out operator B, or buys one depot from operator B - the staff at operator B (or that one depot) transfer under TUPE rights to operator A.
route X is re-tendered by Transport for London, and passes from operator A to operator B. Drivers who work wholly or mostly on route X are eligible for TUPE transfer to operator B. In practice, if operator A has vacancies, they will offer those drivers the chance to stay with them, but transfer to another route or maybe even another depot, but those drivers can still transfer to operator B with the route if they want.) Supervisors / engineering staff who work across the whole depot's operation would not be eligible for TUPE transfer, and might be at risk of a redundancy process if operator reduces the number of those roles. There have been one or two situations where a cross-London route has gone from an operator at one side of London to the other, and the distance between the two has been considered 'unreasonable' so redundancy has applied.
operator Z goes bust abruptly (as in the leasing company turn up one afternoon and want their buses back, drivers are contacted on the radio to bring buses back to the depot then bugger off) - no existing operator is in a position to take any of their routes on immediately, but a lot of different operators put a few buses out on those routes for a few weeks while TFL sorts the mess out and arranges new contracts. (this has happened) - in that case, the original drivers' employment with operator Z ended when they went bust and TUPE didn't apply.
From what you've said, this sounds more like an operator Z situation.
As things are at the moment (although will vary from one bit of the country to another) any driving jobs are having a staff shortage to a greater or lesser extent, whether that's HGV, van or bus / coach, so on one hand, the existing drivers will probably get redundancy pay and a new job relatively easily, although this will be on basis of having to apply for it, and on new employer's terms + conditions (although pay in most of these jobs is going up at the moment.)
from an operational point of view, risk is that the existing drivers will go and get jobs somewhere else before the new contract is sorted out, and new contractor may struggle to get enough staff for day one of new contract.
Thanks again Puddytat i guess all these situations are likely to be subtley different.The basic situation is that a warehouse without a transport service is about as much use as a chocolate teapot so my employer ( warehouse people) are scrambling to find a solution in circumstances where the existing contract holders have gone tits up financially .I think the situation is described as re- tendering.I can quite see that the contract will be made harder to shift if the existing drivers have a proprietary right to their jobs vis a vis any incoming service provider.Guess I will find out how they have fared sometime next week
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
yes. TUPE is not something that's widely known about until it happens to you.
another strand to the question of taking it in-house is whether we're talking transit van (or slightly larger) sized things, or whether it's larger vehicles that come under goods vehicle licensing - if it's the latter, then employer would only be able to take it in-house straight away if they already have an operator's licence that has got the capacity to take on X number more vehicles. if they haven't then it wouldn't be a short term option.
Don't know the answer to that Puddytat but I always imagined they would be relying on the O licences of the on-,site third party even the shunting is outsourced afaik
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
As the person who does the bulk of admin work for our branch, I do a lot of the processing when we have strike pay to pay out, and we have this one member - let's call him Joe-Jack for the sake of anonymity - who I've never been able to pay cos we don't have his bank details. Yesterday I asked one of the cleaners if he could give Joe-Jack a nudge to come to the union office to set his payment details up. I wasn't in the union office today cos I have to do my actual job sometimes, and the only people who were in the office were in the middle of a call with management and so not really able to talk, but they let me know that someone called Joe-Bob had come to the office asking for me and they'd taken his contact details down, which confused me cos I don't know a Joe-Bob. When I eventually managed to get back to Joe-Bob it turned out he's not a member, hadn't been on strike, and so was quite confused about why someone had asked him to come to the union office to discuss his strike pay. Joe-Jack and his zen not-arsedness about the money he's owed remain a mystery. I don't really know that much about Shakespeare, but I imagine this is the sort of thing that would probably happen if Shakespeare wrote a play about trade unionism, except that they'd probably both keep getting married to my cousin or something.
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
For anyone out round East London way:
unions-east.live
About the festival - Unions East Community Festival
The festival is being held on Sunday 30 June 2024 between 1 and 5 pm in Abbotts Park, Leyton, E10 6HT. The nearest station is Leyton Midland Road. Buses 55, 56, 69, 97, W15 and W16 stop nearby. More transport information here. Toilet facilities will be available in the park. If you have any...
unions-east.live
freshapple
Active Member
This is the offer
With effect from 1 April 2024, an increase of £1,290 (pro rata for part-time
employees) to be paid as a consolidated, permanent addition on all NJC pay points
2 to 43 inclusive. The equivalent percentage increases to each pay point are shown at
Annex A
• With effect from 1 April 2024, an increase of 2.50 per cent on all pay points above
the maximum of the pay spine but graded below deputy chief officer (in accordance
with Green Book Part 2 Para 5.41)
• With effect from 1 April 2024 an increase of 2.50 per cent on all allowances (as listed
in the 2023 NJC pay agreement circular dated 1 November 2023)
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
hmm. bit of a difference between £ 1,290 and £ 3,000...
freshapple
Active Member
I think it’s better than last year by a small amount
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
freshapple
Active Member
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
UNISON local government vote was not to accept the pay offer and that didn't get any movement from the employers' side.
Strike ballot landed this morning.
hmm.
i would feel disloyal voting no, and there's no way i would scab if there is strike / any other action
but when the tory* government is talking about cuts and more cuts, i'm not sure i have the enthusiasm for losing pay going on strike, having to catch up with the work afterwards, and just maybe getting a marginally better pay deal that's probably going to be paid for with more service / job cuts (i don't want to see any redundancies, but as 'last in' in my department it's a bit more personal.)
do i need to book myself in to a re-education camp?
* in disguise
Strike ballot landed this morning.
hmm.
i would feel disloyal voting no, and there's no way i would scab if there is strike / any other action
but when the tory* government is talking about cuts and more cuts, i'm not sure i have the enthusiasm for losing pay going on strike, having to catch up with the work afterwards, and just maybe getting a marginally better pay deal that's probably going to be paid for with more service / job cuts (i don't want to see any redundancies, but as 'last in' in my department it's a bit more personal.)
do i need to book myself in to a re-education camp?
* in disguise
PTK
Paul Kegan
What was the offer from the bosses?
What is the union demanding?
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
Think we're going to be in a similar position in HE in the near future. Tbf unless Puddy_Tat is in an unusually well-organised branch I suspect the most likely outcome is that you won't get over the 50% turnout line, remember it being a fairly small proportion of branches that cleared it last time.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
i've voted yes
not sure how high union membership is in my branch, let alone active membership - most 'back office' staff are on work from home contracts now, so seeing / talking to people isn't easy. they do have online meetings, although i've not been to many as they tend to be at odd times in the day rather than evening.
how does the 50% turnout thing work when it's a national agreement thing? is it by workplace / branch / employer or nationally? i'm more than a little bit out of touch with it all...
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
I'm pretty sure that as a member of a recognised union you should have the right to time off to attend union meetings during work hours anyway. (Am tempted to add that, as WFH staff, it's unlikely that you'd get in trouble for just dialing into an online meeting from your house during work hours, but I think the responsible thing is probably to clear it with your line manager first.)
About the 50% thing, it's the union's call whether to do it as one big one nationally, or broken down by bargaining unit - so if the union's confident of getting past 50% turnout nationally they can do it all as one big ballot but you have to be very strong to win that (think UCU, BMA and RMT have won national ones a few times but it's generally pretty rare). I don't work in local government myself, but it's my understanding they count not just each council, but also each contractor/subcontractor with each council, as a separate ballot, I'm sure last time round I saw some number like they'd got about 300 successful strike votes which seemed really impressive until I realised that they were running about 9000 ballots or something mad like that.
...Surprisingly hard to find anything about what the actual results of the 2023 vote was, but saw this from West Sussex UNISON:
NJC Pay Ballot 2023-24: the results - UNISON West Sussex
The branch can now report the results of its industrial action ballot on the NJC pay offer for 2023-24. The headlines: In our largest employer (the largest by far), West Sussex County Council, members voted for strike action with a 76% YES vote. However, the turnout of members who voted was 34%...
- The branch balloted members in 58 separate employers in West Sussex (this is because some schools are treated legally as separate employers, as are all academy schools);
- We got over the government’s 50% participation thresholds in 18 employers, and were under the 50% threshold in 40;
- However, of these 18 employers the largest was a small academy chain with 67 members. Most of the rest were individual schools with less than 20 members;
- None of the national academy chains in West Sussex achieved over 50% participation in the ballot.
