POST OFFICE WORKERS - TUPE OR NOT TUPE?

30-07-2007

Royal Mail has confirmed that West Midlands Post Office workers whose jobs are being "franchised" to WH Smith won't be able to transfer their pay and conditions.

As we revealed last week, 1300 staff are affected by the plan, which will see Post Office Counters hand over day to day control of 85 branches around the country to external firms (link here)

In this region, Erdington, Stafford, Lichfield and Coventry are all affected by the changes which effectively gives an ultimatum to employees.

They can either apply for their old job on less favourable terms, accept a new (unspecified) position with Royal Mail - or else take redundancy.

Jim Reeves of the Communications Workers Union reckons the Post Office is “saying ‘yah boo sucks’ to its workers.”

We wondered why TUPE doesn’t apply - those are the regulations designed to protect people whose jobs are transferred from one company to another.

Here’s Royal Mail’s official explanation: “Post Office colleagues whose branches are converting to WHSmith can either opt to take voluntary redundancy or will be redeployed to another role within Royal Mail Group.

“TUPE would only apply if a colleague's employment was terminated as a result of the conversion. As all colleagues have the option of being redeployed, they do not have a right to claim TUPE.”