In a tupe protected take over can the new employer make staff redundant and then bring in contract workers to replace them.

Nige

No.

TUPE stands for Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employees) Regulations 2006.

Basically you are protected unless there is an 'economic, technical or organisational reason'.

Your T&C's cannot be worsened either.

I hinted at telling all the IT department about TUPE when the boss tried to outsource IT in my last place. Suddenly the plans all changed...and I got made redundant!

HAHA! Oh well, at least the team was saved and I've got a better job now.

TUPE is a pretty effective law, and employers DONT like it. They rely on employee ignorance most of the time.

Yes and no. People arn't made redundant, the position is. If the incoming company don't want to employ the outgoing staff, they can quite easily create a new position. It could well be the same job but have a different title and perhaps different qualifications or pay scale. I transferred from one company to another under TUPE and we were all smug knowing that the incoming company had to employ us under our old terms and conditions..........but to change or T&Cs, all they had to do was give us notice. They buggered around with our wages, conditioned hours, overtime, contracts etc and when the union got involved, the new company had done everything they had to under employment law. One of the things they did was to make the position of 'Shift Charge Engineer' redundant, but employed 'Shift Supervisors' in their place. They did offer the position to some of the guys but at a reduced rate.
Reading through the Employment Law Handbooks is one thing. Real life is a different ball bag altogether.....
Good luck.

Looks to me as if your new employer might be pushing his luck. The answer to your question is not clear cut. TUPE does not outlaw (render automatically unfair) all dismissals but does make it unfair to dismiss an employee because of a transfer or for a reason connected to the transfer that is not an ETO reason (see above). An employer cannot show an ETO reason unless it involves "changes to the workforce" - a change in terms is not a change in the workforce. Seems very arguable to me that "workforce" would disregard the difference in status between employees and contract workers. If that is so any dismissals would be unfair.

In addition TUPE places an obligation on employers to consult in relation to the effect of the transfer before it takes place. A failure to do so may entitle the effected employees to compensation - usually 13 weeks pay.

If you want (or need) to do something about this you should get some advice - this is a really "interesting" area i.e. hard to understand. If you are in a union great. If not read every insurance document you have (including household and breakdown AA RAC etc) and see if you have legal expenses insurance.

good luck