Law queries

We work in the travel industry and get cheap travel facilities that most staff value highly. We are likely to be transferred to another company that is not within the core travel sector and therefore cannot easily provide the same facilities. Can we stop the transfer on the basis that we will not be getting the same terms and conditions?

It is unlikely that you would be able to use the law to prevent a transfer purely on the basis that it would not give staff the right to the same contractual benefits.

There is a Court of Appeal case that suggests that where the same level of entitlement is not available employees may be able to sue their old employer for wrongful dismissal. The case concerned a university employee who, after a transfer, would not have had the same level of employment protection as he had enjoyed from the old employer. This was held to give him the grounds for the wrongful dismissal claim.

In a recent ruling (the Mitie case) the EAT held that in cases where staff have a benefit which the new employer cannot easily provide TUPE will be satisfied as long as an equivalent benefit is offered.

* More information: University of Oxford v Humphreys [2000] IRLR 183; Mitie Managed Services v French and others [2002] IRLR 512