Decisive CWU intervention ensures correct redundancy entitlements and consultation for in-scope Capita members

Telecoms & Financial Services August 4 2023

CWU representations reminding Capita of its special legal responsibilities to ex-Telefonica employees in redundancy situations have led to a reversal of the company’s position on two important points.

Under the 2013 TUPE ‘Matrix’ – which records the precise terms of what was then the biggest outsourcing of staff in UK industrial history – a formula stipulating how enhanced redundancy terms in any job loss situation should be calculated is set out in black and white, along with a cast-iron requirement that ‘any major change involving 100 or more affected employees will involve a consultation period of at least 90 days.’

Yet, surprisingly, following Capita’s announcement last month that 265 staff were being placed ‘at risk’ of on account of VMO2’s decision to move their work to a different outsourcer –  which in turn plans to fulfil it in the Philippines – the company communicated that only statutory redundancy entitlements applied, and that the consultation period would be just 45 days.

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