Redundancy

The threat or risk of redundancy if contract change is not agreed can be an economic or organisational reason entailing changes to the workforce, but only if that threat directly affects the individual whose contract terms are changed for a TUPE-related reason. This was established in Manchester College v Hazel [2012] UKEAT/0642/11/RN. In this case, Manchester College tried to rely on a general background of redundancies and organisational change to justify a decision to dismiss two employees who had refused to agree to the harmonisation of their pay following a TUPE transfer. The argument failed because by the time their contract terms were changed, the employees’ own roles were no longer at risk of redundancy. This case is under appeal.