Company takeover, changing holiday entitlements

loveisdivine

Hi,

Just looking for some opinions on this. The company I work for has been sold and the new owners have been in place for about 9 months now. We were told at the time that contracts would be transferred over and the new owners basically had to honour what was in them.

We have been sold before and the same thing happened then, existing contracts and benefits were just rolled over to the new owners at the time.

I have accrued 25 days holiday as per my initial contract for time served. Apparently, these newest owners plan to reduce it back down to 20 next year.

They haven't provided us with new contracts yet. I know from the last time we were sold, we had a choice of keeping our old contracts or signing a new one. Most of us kept our old ones cos they were better.

Will I not have the same choice now? It seems a bit unfair that I'm suddenly down 5 days holiday through no fault of my own.

golfball37

They have to buy them off you at a minimum . They can’t unilaterally change a term like that without agreement. Are you a member of a union?
It’s an open and shut case at the WRC for you should you pursue it.

daheff

your contracts should have been TUPE'd

Basically means your time served & any benefits are preserved.

So once that has happened you are in the same position as before company was sold/takenover.

Assuming this has happened the new company cannot unilaterally change your contract. You can refuse their request to change it. Or you can negotiate any changes (eg more money).

loveisdivine

Thanks. Not part of a union. I was under the impression everything was Tupe'd as the previous owner assured us everything would be rolled over.

After posting here I spoke to a colleague from a different department who said they sat down with him and offered him a salary increase to reduce his holidays from 22 to 20. So I assume that's what they are going to say to me too.

It's quite frustrating because they don't seem to be very good at communicating. Everything's just rumor and hearsay. Some people have had proper meetings, some haven't.

BrokenArrows

I was involved in a takeover too and had 30 days which was reduced to 20.

To compensate for the 10 days lost we were given a pay rise to match the amount of days we were losing.

The company had the option to purchase more holiday days.