TUPE and contract change

A contract change that breaches TUPE will be void, even if employees have agreed to it. This is because EU law does not allow employees to give up their statutory protections under the ARD (Wilson v St Helens Borough Council [1998] IRLR 706).

A contract change that breaches TUPE will be void even if the employer paid for it, for example, giving transferring workers a pay rise in return for giving up advantageous holiday rights, to bring their holiday entitlement into line with that of the transferee’s workforce.

As a result of changes to the law in January 2014 explained in this Chapter, in England, Wales and Scotland (but not Northern Ireland), the law treats contract change differently, depending on whether the relevant contract term is “incorporated from a collective agreement” (Regulation 4(5B), TUPE, as amended) (see page 62).