Union contests £400m public-sector outsourcing deal
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Somerset councils did not give workers sufficient information about outsourcing deal with IBM, says Unison
The trade union is taking a group of
In October 2007, Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and the
Unison claims that the employers withheld information from workers in advance of the deal. Somerset County Council says that it offered Unison more details of the deal, but Unison claims this information was offered only under a non-disclosure agreement that would have prevented it from passing the details on to members.
"The initial terms on which staff were transferred were not made available for consultation by the unions,” a Unison spokesperson said. “The case will be about whether staff were transferred without being fully informed of the terms."
Ashley Graham, a lawyer for the firm Pinsent Masons, said that the Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) Regulations, or TUPE, do not require the employer to disclose all details of a potential outsourcing deal to its employees.
"The normal obligation under TUPE to inform and consult with employees… does not necessarily mean that there is any obligation to disclose every detail contained in the proposed staff transfer agreement,” she said.
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