Colin Bourn - The Transfer of Undertakings in the Public Sector

THE TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Employment and European Union Law Series

Series editors:

Colin Bourn, Jeff Kenner and Alan Neal
University of Leicester

Already published:

Trends in European Social Policy
edited by Jeff Kenner

Edited by
Colin Bourn

First published 1999 by Dartmouth Publishing Company and Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Colin Bourn 1999

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 99075455

ISBN 13:978-1-138-70054-3 (hbk)
ISBN 13:978-1-315-20463-5 (ebk)

Catherine Bailey is a graduate of the Law and Employment Relations programme in the University of Leicester. She is Legal Officer with Rother District Council, where she has had extensive responsibilities for transfers related matters.

Colin Bourn is a Director of the International Centre for Management, Law and Industrial Relations in the Faculty of Law in the University of Leicester and also practises as a barrister, specialising in employment issues. He has published many articles on employment matters and is the joint author of Anti-Discrimination Law in Britain, Sweet and Maxwell, 3rd edn., 1996.

Karl Larrad is a graduate of the Law and Employment Relations programme in the University of Leicester. He is a solicitor and Legal Officer, Kirklees Metropolitan Council, where he has had extensive responsibilities for transfers related matters.

Pascale Lorber is a graduate of the Law and Employment Relations programme in the University of Leicester. She is now a Lecturer in Law at the University of Leicester, where she has specialised in issues of information, consultation and participation at work, on which she has published several articles.

Stephen Hardy is Lecturer in Law in the Department of Social Work and Law in the University of Salford. He undertook a Ph.D. in this area and is joint author of TUPE and CCT Business transfers: UK Labour Market Views, Staffordshire Law School, 1997.

Paul Thorpe is a graduate of the Law and Employment Relations programme in the University of Leicester. He is Personnel Officer, Barnsley District Council, where he has had extensive responsibilities for transfers related matters.

The aim of this book is to provide an assessment of the way in which the Acquired Rights Directive has functioned in Britain and in particular how it has had impact upon the public sector. The book draws together contributions written from a legal and a human resource perspective. It is hoped that it will be of value to those attempting to grapple with the implications of the Directive and that it will provide an insight into the likely impact of the amending Directive 98/50/EC agreed at the Cardiff Council in June 1998. This volume has had a long gestation period, awaiting the resolution of issues in the case law, such as the Suzen and Wilson cases, as well as agreement in the Council on a revised and amended Acquired Rights Directive. In the event, the major uncertainties about the scope of the transfers regime and the capacity of employers to vary terms and conditions of employment have reached some resolution, with the text of the revised Directive available, so that this volume is able to present an analysis which may have a longer life than has been possible hitherto in this last moving field.

Several of the chapters in this book started life as dissertations written for the masters programmes in Law and Employment Relations and in European Union law which are offered by the International Centre for Management, Law and Industrial Relations in the University of Leicester. It forms the second volume in a series based upon research undertaken by staff members in the International Centre and by participants in the two masters programmes which it offers. As the progammes in Law and Employment Relations and in European Union Law are offered in a distance learning format, they attract mature professional students who often bring a great depth of experience to their research projects. It is that combination of practical experience, personal interest and academic knowledge which often leads to the selection of projects which are of considerable practical, as well as theoretical, interest. It is with the hope that this book will be of interest to those involved in the practice of business reorganisations and the transfer of undertakings, as well as to the academic community, that this book is offered as a contribution to the growing literature on these matters.

This book is the second to be published in a series of volumes emanating from the International Centre for Management, Law and Industrial Relations in the University of Leicester, which draw together the fruits of research in the fields of interest of the Centre, principally, employment law and European Union law. The series will include monographs, collected essays and conference papers which reflect the diversity of work currently being undertaken.

The law is as stated at 31st March, 1999

Colin Bourn
Leicester, 1999

Abels v Bedrifjsvereniging voor de Metaalindustrie en de Electronische Industrie [1985] ECR 469

Adams & Others v. Lancashire C.C. and BET Catering Services Ltd [1997] IRLR 436, CA, [1996] IRLR 154, HC

Alcan Extrusions v Yates [1996] IRLR 327

Alexander v STC [1990] ICR 291

Allan v Stirling District Council [1995] IRLR 301, CS, [1994] IRLR 208, EAT

Allsop v North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council [1992] ICR 639

Anderson and McAlonie v Dalkeith Engineering [1984] IRLR 429, [1985] ICR 66, EAT

Anderson v Kluwer Publishing Limited COIT 15068/85, Industrial Tribunal, 4 September 1985