The Government has just published the rather snappily titled "The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2013" to effect the changes
The Government has just published the rather snappily titled "The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2013" to effect the changes that they have proposed to the TUPE Regulations 2006.
In summary the Regulations:
- enable pre transfer collective redundancy consultation by a transferee where the transferor agrees to such pre transfer consultation;
- clarify that the activities carried out before and after a service provision change should be "fundamentally the same";
- enable post transfer variations in terms and conditions of employment where the employee's contract of employment permits the variation;
- allow the re-negotiation of terms and conditions derived from collective agreements one year after the transfer provided that the overall change is no less favourable to the employee;
- clarify that rights, powers, duties and liabilities under collective agreements do not transfer where the provision in the collective agreement is agreed and comes into force after the date of transfer and the transferee is not a participant to the collective bargaining for that provision;
- provide that dismissals for economic, technical or organisational reasons entailing changes in the workforce of either the transferee or transferor before or after the transfer are not unfair;
- provide that a change in the place where the employees are employed is included within the scope of economic, technical or organisational reasons "entailing changes in the workforce";
- extend the deadline for providing employee liability information from 14 days to 28 days before the transfer; and
- allow "micro businesses" i.e. businesses with less than 10 employees to inform and consult directly with all affected employees where there are no existing appropriate representatives in place.
It is proposed that the Regulations will be laid before Parliament in December and that they will come into force on an unspecified date in January 2014.