TUPE/Redundancy questions at marketing company

Hi

I work for a large marketing company (company A) and work across a number of clients for the company.

In November 2010 they set up a new company (company B) in a different office and transferred 3 of their clients to that Company B. Employees were told that they would be transferred to Company B if they spent more than 70% of their time on those 3 clients. Otherwise they would be retained by Company B.

According to my timesheets I spent about 55% of my time on the 3 clients being transferred. So according to the rules I was not transferred. I complained about this at the time, as I realised that much of my work would disappear and this was out of my control. Furthermore the vast majority of my digital department was transferred which meant that the old company had a vastly reduced digital team which did not really have the resources to sustain itself.

This week I was informed I am at risk of redundancy due to the fact they are closing the digital department at the old company, due to lack of work.

My question is - is it fair for Company A to set up a new company and siphon off over half of my work, therefore causing my role to become redundant? To me it seems like a cynical ploy to divide and conquer, making it easier to justify a reduction in headcount. This is almost certainly true, but do I have any recourse?

Is it fair - probably not. Is it legal - sorry, it is. TUPE protects the rights of workers transferred, not those left behind. They set a policy to determine the transfer of staff, and applied it. You didn't qualify to trnasfer. If there is now not enough work in the company, there is a risk of redundancy. They haven't broken the law in what they have done, so I am afraid that, for now, you are stuck with it. Sorry about that - as is often the case, there is a vast differene between what is fair and what is fair in law.

Thanks so much for your reply. That's unfortunate that they can get away with doing that. Another issue that has come up is the length of the consultation period. I have been given 2 weeks but my colleague who was made redundant on the same day for the same reasons has been given 3 weeks. There are less than 20 people being made redundant so as far as I know there may not be any legal limits, but is it legally fair for them to give different lengths to different people? I've asked them for an explanation - their first reponse is that they cannot discuss other employees' situations, but I am going to push for a response.

No there is no legal time period - and so the required time is the required time. There is no case in law to take legal action over different lengths of time given. The period must be sufficient to ensure that a consultation can be exhausted, and technically this could be a few days - it depends obviously on the circumstances. No reason why you shouldn't push for an answer - but technically they could be correct in that there are circumstances why the other person has 3 weeks which you don't know about and shouldn't know about, and in itself it doesn't prove unfairness in your consultation.