- Original Poster
- #1
Hi,
I am a support worker for a private mental health service provider who provide community and home based support visits. In October last year we were Tuped over to a homecare provider who was expanding into mental health provision (this was to be their first mental health contract).
Our terms and conditions and working practices have remained the same since then, however our managers have been quite vocal about the unsustainability of the business in its current form. That said, the business has been growing in-so-far as we provide more service hours to the local authority than we did at the time of Tupe.
New recruits are all employed on zero-hour contracts and are only paid for "Direct Contact" - that is, time spent with service users. This differs significantly from the contracts of existing staff who are contracted to 37.5 hours per week which includes travel time between support visits.
An individual who used to work for our former employer wanted to return to work but was disappointed with the terms and conditions (zero hour etc). A manager allegedly said something along the lines of "everybody will be on that contract come October." This has found its way back to existing members of staff who are understandably very concerned about their contracts (the lack of paid travel time alone would mean a significant reduction in wages for all of us despite nothing about our working practices changing).
My question is how easy or otherwise will it be for our employer to change all our contracts or for us to challenge this? Our suspicions are that in a bid to expand their business they tendered for a contract that they could not sustain, merely planning to run at a loss for 12 months then reduce our wages to make up the shortfall. Does anyone have any advice on what we should do?
Thanks in advance.
I am a support worker for a private mental health service provider who provide community and home based support visits. In October last year we were Tuped over to a homecare provider who was expanding into mental health provision (this was to be their first mental health contract).
Our terms and conditions and working practices have remained the same since then, however our managers have been quite vocal about the unsustainability of the business in its current form. That said, the business has been growing in-so-far as we provide more service hours to the local authority than we did at the time of Tupe.
New recruits are all employed on zero-hour contracts and are only paid for "Direct Contact" - that is, time spent with service users. This differs significantly from the contracts of existing staff who are contracted to 37.5 hours per week which includes travel time between support visits.
An individual who used to work for our former employer wanted to return to work but was disappointed with the terms and conditions (zero hour etc). A manager allegedly said something along the lines of "everybody will be on that contract come October." This has found its way back to existing members of staff who are understandably very concerned about their contracts (the lack of paid travel time alone would mean a significant reduction in wages for all of us despite nothing about our working practices changing).
My question is how easy or otherwise will it be for our employer to change all our contracts or for us to challenge this? Our suspicions are that in a bid to expand their business they tendered for a contract that they could not sustain, merely planning to run at a loss for 12 months then reduce our wages to make up the shortfall. Does anyone have any advice on what we should do?
Thanks in advance.
Perhaps that's something I can rectify with the right advice as I know little about it or even if one exists for me.
