Hi,

The company i work for has been hit hard by the recession like so many companies have! I work at a local newspaper who print their own newspapers as well as a separate contract. They have announced to make many reduncies and have decided to stop printing all together at their main office, due to the company needing to save money and as our separete printing contract runs out at the end of April. Due to this, TUPE is to be used and will affect me and over 60 people in total where i work.

I've had a quick read on various sites about TUPE and the little booklet they gave to us and i can't say i can get my head round it all! I'm still really not sure how it works and how it could be possible for this to work. First of all there is roughly 32 people who are proposed to be moving to this new company on the contract i'm going with, 32 people that this company i'm almost certain won't want, but we keep being told by this TUPE law that they HAVE to employ us! Second thing is, this law seems all well and good if your company gets taken over or you are being moved not to far away but even though having a job is so important at this current time i don't honestly want to be driving up to 100 miles away every day! But i don't really see why i should be forced into this sitaution where i have to go or give up my job just because i've been transfered with a contracted job miles away.

I live in Kent and live within 20 miles of where i work now which is fine, but the big problem will be where they decide to contract the printing to, they are still in talks with 5 printers and they will let us know when the contract is all signed. My main question is does TUPE guarentee you a job at a new firm in this situation, even if they don't need any more employees?

Sorry for the long post, its just a very hard sitation to get your head around and despite looking on a few sites and trying to find a few scenarios where TUPE has been used, i haven't been able to find any cases in the printing industry. I hope you can give me some advice as i think i will need to make a big decision in the coming weeks.