TUPE/Collective Agreements - How Does a Collective Agreement Affect a TUPE Transfer?

In the recent case of Worrall v Wilmott Dixon the EAT considered whether rights granted under a collective agreement survived a TUPE transfer.

The rights granted under the collective agreement were rights of staff to be given credit for an additional five years service if they were made redundant and were provided by statutory rules. The rules had been repealed after the TUPE transfer, but before the claimant was made redundant by the transferee.

The question was what extra rights, if any, the combined effect of the collective agreement and the statutory rules gave to the claimant at that point. In deciding the case, the EAT confirmed that, because the statutory rules had been repealed, the claimant could not claim any rights under them. The EAT also decided that, in any event, the rights granted by the collective agreement had not formed part of the claimant's contract.

Points to Note –

The rule, as recently confirmed by the Court of Appeal in the case of Parkwood Leisure v Alemo-Herron, is that a transferee...