h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

About a month ago our company went through a rebid process for the contract i currently work on. We provide people to support some of the IT systems for our customer. But only some, basically filling their shortfall. Well, couple of weeks ago we found out that we hadn;t won the contract, someone else has. So our contract ends august/september this year.
But. Yesterday (late!) we found out that we may be subject to TUPE transfer to the new contract holder. How this can be i really do not understand since we do not work for the customer. It even looks like this was never part of the bid but something our company has come up with since we lost. And looking at it the only people to lose are ourselves, the companies, all three of them, win. But I cannot see how this can be a TUPE deal. Lots of questions and our managment are being very tight lipped. I smells a rat I does. And I don;t like it!
Although this is much preferable to having no job at the end of it!

TUPE...is this some kind of new word for sub-contracting?

That's the only thing I can think that it can be.




Oh, mind the

How can you not work for the customer? Good ol' TUPE is whats happening the the company that very kindly gave me no notice back in February!

Its not unusual for another company to employ personel in their current position to minimalise the cost of taking over a new contract pretty much negating the need to train new staff. This of course would be preferable to the customer because they can continue almost with normal operations..

Your company would probably receive a nice fat pay off for releasing their staff, of whom they may have had to make redundancies... So they would be very happy too...

The thing that annoys me about TUPE is that its moving over on the same terms, blah, blah, blah. But when you look into it your pension is affected because they will probably have their own pension arrangements and what some people forget is from literally the second you sign your own contract they can give you notice to change the terms and conditions. So legally you have moved over on the same terms, but there is nothing stopping them from changing it..

So where was I going with this? I have no idea.. but best of luck there!

Trust me after 2 months of Trisha and Fern & Phil, having a job is alot more soul satisfying!

"How can you not work for the customer? "
Because I work for my company. My company has (or rather had!) a contract to supply a managed service. The contract is at the company level. How best to put it. Erm. Well I am a Senior Technical Analyst for my company. We have lots of projects and I get to move around pretty much as I like / am needed. There is nothing contractual that ties me to the customer, only to my company.
Hence why I do not see how I can be TUPE'd.

VV - TUPE is where an employeee is transferred from one company to another along with their job. So for example if I made widgets for Bernie's Widget Company, and Bernie's decided to pay Gerards Consultancy to supply the staff to make the widgets for them then the staff that Bernies currently employ would be TUPEd over to Gerards. They stay in the same job, with the same benefits (excluding pensions!) and pay and so forth. All that changes (allegedly) is the name on the paypacket.

But in this situation I work for Gerards, who did not TUPE anyone just used their own staff. Gerrards have now lost the contract and Colins Consultancy have won it. They are now saying that as an employee of Gerards who worked on the projectI can be TUPEd to Colins. Which doesn;t sound right to me!

Just to be pedantic.... I understand that you are not directly employed by the customer, if you were they would be your employer and not customer!

But.... Your company is employed to do work 'for and on behalf of' your customer, which does mean that in some capacity you could be considered as working for your customer....


he..he..he

Not at all. We provide a managed service. That means that the customer has outsourced the support of the system to a third party and that third party is responsible for staffing the requirement. We are not named as part of that contract.
TUPE is for transfer of business or undertakings. Its all a bit woolly to be honest, as far as I can see. I've had a look at the DTI site for TUPE and it really isn't that clear.

Genie,

by the looks of it they are getting us under the clause put in there for things like contract cleaning services !
But it only counts as transfer of undertaking if the *majority* of staff are transferred. So if the new contract holder only takes 1 or 2 people then I presume that means it isn;t TUPE.

B*gg*red if I know But I',m sure someone somewhere is doing very nicely thankyou out of it. I am also sure that someone isn't me!

'Mop ya floor Guvna?'

mmmmmmm yes I'm sure the company you work for would be 'compensated' for the loss of your fantastic skills..... (keep an eye out for your bosss checking out a new car and holidays for the Maldives in the near future)

Sorry shouldn't laugh about it... I know exactly what its like..

So when will you know for definate whats going on? August isn't that far away now...

Isn't this the way we all started in the wonderful world of outsourcing - or what ever the current buzz word is.

Half the staff I have were shoved into the job because they worked for BR and we took over their computing, most of the rest of us used work for a company called CRL, who were some of the original body-shoppers.

I suppose for you it depends whether the contract is being taken back in-house or if another firm has won the contract.

Another firm won the contract. Our company lost it, but it had run its course (ie 5 yr contract up for renewal) and some how they think this means we are in scope for TUPE. S*ds. Oh, and the other company is the one you thought I worked for McKay, y'know, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub!

So, need any Oracle /Unix senior technical bods or tea leaders / Project leaders at your place?

I don't have a place for a 'Tea Leader', but I could do with a 'Tea Maker'.....

Ah well, about all I feel good for! Although to be honest I'm more of a Coffee leader (in consumption stakes anyway!) than a tea leader

They're looking for Unix Techies at Nottingham, but I wouldn't recommend it - and our Oracle team are split between Nottingham and Andover (in the UK) - but the situation is pretty fluid at the moment. Because the fishy people who bought us out were so small in the UK, its more like we took them over, and there's a fair ammount of in-fighting going on.