TUPE and Collective Agreements
James Medhurst | Employment Law2 Feb 2010
The decision in Parkwood Leisure v Alemo-Herron is authority for the proposition that, following a TUPE transfer, an employee is not entitled to benefit from any changes to a collective agreement that are negotiated with the transferor after the transfer. The most interesting aspect of the case is its treatment of European law. The English authorities had developed in line with a more generous interpretation of TUPE but the European Court of Justice had taken a narrower view. The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the English cases remained good law even though they were no longer necessary to comply with the Directive. The Court of Appeal disagreed, saying that TUPE had been incorrectly interpreted.
