Toupee

From now on my preferred pronunciation of TUPE will be 'toupee' as this appears to be the accepted way that non-lawyers wish to pronounce it. Perhaps this is simply my way of trying to inject some humour into what is otherwise a very dry and complex area of employment law.

I recently had cause to delve into the regulations and was struck yet again how lacking in justice the rules can sometimes turn out to be. At the end of the hearing the Judge was apologetic as to the outcome which saw a Claimant lose because he had objected prior to the transfer and found himself unable to show that the proposed changes amounted to a substantial enough change and also did not fundamentally breach his contract of employment.

The operation of Reg 4 and in particular 4(7) - (9) creates real risk for an employee who thinks his job might change. If he does want to object he must be sure what the changes are, so that when he does leave he is not left without a remedy by virtue of Reg 4(8).

What can we learn from this? If you are advising a client pre-transfer you need to be certain that any changes are substantial. The best advice, if you are not sure, is to recommend they hang on until after the transfer and see how things work out. This would have been good advice for the Claimant who received an apology from the Judge but no compensation.

Peter D