TUPE and collective agreement

A. Under Regulation 5 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE), any collective agreement with a recognised trade union that is in force immediately before the transfer will continue to apply to any of the employees who transfer.

The TUPE Regulations use the same definition of a collective agreement as set out in section 178(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULR(C)A).

Unfortunately, changes to the TUPE Regulations made by the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 allow the incoming employer to change terms and conditions that have been incorporated into individual contracts from a collective agreement so long as the change takes effect more than one year after the date of the transfer.

Terms relating to occupational pension schemes are excluded so do not transfer (Regulation 10).