In a job conundrum

[cyber69]

Now going through a 3rd TUPE process going back to a company that originally outsourced all it's engineers 4 years ago. The company they first TUPE'd us to quickly found out they could not handle the amount of work and so missed lots of SLA's and started paying out penalties
and in the end wound up the business and we were quickly TUPE'd over to the company I work for now who also have found out to their cost that the work is costing them.

Before we were originally TUPE'D over to save on costs they stopped doing company cars and I was forced to take a car allowance of £350 a month (minus tax & NI) so I got myself a decent car for about £13k. When the first TUPE happened they were not going to pay enough to
break even on the fuel so I had the chance of a company car which I took and still have now with the company I work for.

Now of course going back to the original company they are saying that we do not give out company cars so I will have to take the car allowance which I suspect has not changed in the 4 years (they never changed it in the 8 years I was there before). My job has also changed in that
the area I now cover is all over the place, Cambridge to Manchester coving up to 1000 miles a week.

I've let them know in the first consultation that there is no way I can afford to run a private car doing that sort of mileage but i'm not hopeful they will change the area I cover.

So that leaves me with a problem if to splurge out on a car which I will have to get a loan and top up with a few thousand or to just call it quits and look for something else.

I am financially stable enough for 6 months at least with drastic spending reductions but I realise I will probably need a car anyway for some other job.

I'm kind of specialised in enterprise server and storage hardware warranty repairs and never really got involved in the OPS kind of support, so quite niche.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Are there many of you affected? It may be worth getting some legal advice.

TUPE, the whole point of it, is to protect your benefits. If your contract says your entitled to a car then they need to honour that.
BUT, they don't need to honour it for long.

Eg "Employees who transfer to an organisation under TUPE retain their entitlement to contractual benefits, which can cause practical difficulties for the transferee employer. The employer will also have to decide how to deal with any non-contractual or discretionary benefits that employees previously enjoyed."

So a lot will depend on if its contractual. If your contract says you are entitled to a company car (normally it will) they cannot simply take that away.
They would need to consult on changing your contractual terms when you transfer over.
Some companies may take a very hard line in regards that, but they should give your your notice period as warning of removal is my understanding.
IE if your on 3 months notice I believe they must give you three months notice of a change to your terms that says you will lose that benefit.
You will be screwed in the end if thats the route they choose of course.

There is a grey area, benefits they cannot provide, but they would IMO be wrongly arguing as their policy says no cars then they cannot provide them. They can, they just choose not to.
Cannot normally relates to something thats physically/practically impossible, say you worked for somewhere that allowed you to take home free crisps when there are spare as they manufacture them, then your role moves to a support company they just support doing the same work as you do now, they cannot give you free crisps.

 

[cyber69]

I managed to find my contract when I moved from being a contractor to a perm employee and it states that they will provide a car with 2.5 years of lease left then after that it may not be renewed and I would go back to the car allowance.

So I guess I don't have any legal case against them.

 

[cyber69]

Start new job on Monday

Company would not budge on the car allowance figure and even said we had to get our own mobile phones to use for overseas calls. The car allowance has not been revised for over 15 years at this company so I had no option but to opt out of the Tupe transfer but I managed to secure another job in the meantime.

Just means that I am now without a car with the company car going back this week. As the new job is only a couple of miles away however I can either walk, cycle or use my daughters car.