TUPE Regulations and cleaning companies

TUPE and contract cleaning companies
If you are a European or UK contract cleaning company looking to expand or even sell your business you will sooner or later, more likely sooner, come across the TUPE regulations.
But what are the TUPE regulations and how do they affect cleaning companies? These two seemingly simple question should have simple straightforward answers but unfortunately TUPE is enormously complicated and if a cleaning contractor gets it wrong the financial costs can be significant.
TUPE is short for Transfer of Undertakings of Protection of Employment Regulations 2006 and are the UK's implementation of the European Community's new Acquired rights Directive (2001/23/EC). It is now a significant part of UK employment law, protecting employees whose business is being transferred to another business. The 2006 regulations replace the old 1981 regulations.
The aim of TUPE is to protect the rights of employees, ensuring that workers are not dismissed before or after a transfer unless there is an "economic, technical, or organisational" reason. Employees' terms and conditions of contract should not be compromised before or after the transfer (again unless there is an economic, technical or organisational reason). Employees must be consulted through any transfers. The protected contract terms for Employees inc hours of work, pay, length of service, any other entitlements.

The regulations mean for cleaning contractors that when a a cleaning contract passes from client to cleaning contractor or between cleaning contractors, cleaners have a legal right to transfer to the new employer on their same terms and conditions of employment - and with continuous service.
Cleaning companies face a minefield of regulation with no clear guidelines, for example there are no specific guidelines as to when an employee spends sufficient time on a contract to be guaranteed TUPE protection in the event of a transfer But if the contractor gets this wrong and mistakenly judges an employee does not qualify for the transfer, an employee can go to an employment tribunal at no cost to themselves get a significant amount for unfair dismissal.
If you are involved in any aspect of TUPE you will need specialist employment advice as it is extremely complicated and open to misinterpretation, but get it wrong and the outcomes can extremely costly. Here at ICS Cleaning we employ specialist employment law consultants and have considerable experience in dealing with TUPE and can guide our clients through the whole process.