Can you help

scrunchy

Asking for a friend:

My friend has been working for the last 12 years (self employed) for the same company.

A few months ago my friend was told the contract was going out to tender.

It now looks like my friend has lost the contract.

My friend has received no notice of end of contract.

My friend does not know if he has any employment rights, I'd be very grateful if anyone any any advice or is it a matter of hard lick and move on.

Thanks for any help.

Mrs OBumble

Self-employed ... for the same company for 12 years?

Did s/he put in a tender???

mm_surf

It will all come down to whether your friend is a "self employed contractor" or "employee".

What he is called day-to-day, and what is in the contract that has been signed is not what determines this.

The revenue commissioners have a strict set of criteria to determine whether someone is an employee (and has all the employee rights that goes with that).

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/rct/determining-the-correct-employment-status-of-a-worker.html

If the revenue would consider him an employee, so would an employment tribunal.

M.

scrunchy

Thanks for the replies, he has worked for the same company for 12 years, he is self employed and he had employees who worked for him for the same company.

He is paid by invoice from the company.

It was put out to tender and it now looks like he has lost it.

12 years is a long time to work for any company and to lose it without notice (unless knowing the contract was up for tender is notice) is hard to swallow and financially crippling for him.

Thanks again.

Mrs OBumble

Of course knowing that the contract was up for tender is notice!!!!

This is blatantly not a work and jobs question - except perhaps for your friend's employees.

I'm going to shift this to Entrepreneurship and Business Management, in the hope that the folks there might be able to teach you / your friend a thing or two about diversification and broadening his customer based.

ICCM

If the contract was put up for tender and your friend was notified of that fact then I assume he put in a bid for the tender and was unsuccessful,

if his company was carrying out work on fixed term contracts for another company then he cant really complain when the contract comes to an end as the fact that is was not permanent should have been specified in the contract document that he signed,

It would be unreasonable IMHO (given the current trading conditions) to expect the prime contractor to just continue with your friends company paying a higher rate just because they had been associated a long time.

miju

If he was considered an employee in any way and even has some kind of documentation he could well make a solid case under TUPE which to sum up means the new company taking over from the incumbent company has to take on their staff under the same terms and conditions for at least a set period of time.

Read more about it here.

ICCM

I think you will find that TUPE only protects the rights of the employees of the prime company i.e. if a company has 10 employees in its IT division and the company decides to outsource its IT work (which would make the 10 employees redundant) then TUPE states that the 10 displaced employees have the right to transfer to the new service provider on the same terms as their existing employment contracts, I dont think TUPE protects the rights of employees for a sub contractor

scrunchy

Thanks for all the replies.

He has been given the contract and work resumes.

Happy ending!

Please close this thread!

miju

ICCM wrote: »

I dont think TUPE protects the rights of employees for a sub contractor

TUPE also relates to the staff of the current incumbent company (who are about to lose out on a tender) having the right to transfer to the company who have newly wont the under the same terms / conditions.

Check any government tender and you'll see TUPE in action