Labour Research June 2004

Features: Law queries

Transfer rights

I was transferred under TUPE and am now still doing the same work but employed through an agency. Colleagues who remained with our old employer have been offered £1,000 to accept a new shift pattern. Those of us who were transferred have also had to work the new shifts, but the agency says there is no obligation to pay us the £1,000 bonus. I thought that if you transferred with TUPE protection it meant that you continued to have the rights you had (or would have had) with your old employer.

Unfortunately the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 (TUPE) only protect your terms and conditions as they stood at the date of the transfer. They do not cover future terms and conditions unless there is a very clear term to that effect in the employment contract.

* More information: LRD booklet, Transfers - an LRD guide to the TUPE regulations.