British Countermeasure to the Offshoring Crisis

A heavily financed disinformation campaign attempts to convince UK and US citizens that the offshoring crisis “benefits” those who lost their jobs to the body shops of Bangalore. In the US, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Friends of India Caucus, NASSCOM, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign committee, and other far-left lunatic fringe organizations demand that Americans embrace offshoring, illegal aliens, globalism, and H-1B visa holders.

Lop-sided pro-Bangalore pay scales have been preventing UK and US technical workers from competing for jobs on British or American soil, given industries’ infatuation with body shop “coolie” labour from India. Avalon succinctly describes how Great Britain’s application of the TUPE regulations will demonstrate that offshoring and illegal alien employment can be stopped or properly regulated.

Great Britain shows the world how to fight the crisis. For a TUPE regulation to be implemented on the Western side of the Atlantic, pro-offshoring, pro-illegal alien, anti-American elected officials, such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Ted Kennedy, will have to be voted out of office.

Many thanks and appreciation to Avalon for effectively disproving the propaganda.

Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment)

by Avalon

TUPE is not a British-specific law, but comes from European Union legislation, specifically European Community Acquired Rights Directive (77/187/EEC, as amended by Directive 98/50 EC and consolidated in 2001/23/EC). In the EEC, a new law is interpreted through local state legislation, however the interpretation of that law can vary from country to country, as long as the minimum provisions of the European "law" are met. Accordingly the UK Human Rights Act can be different to the equivalent legislation in say Greece or Poland, but the minimum protections will be present either way.

The Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) regulations have been around for years, and indeed have smoothed things over for outsourcing contracts. Having TUPE ensures that for most cases, unions and employees have few fears when they are transferred to from say a local authority to a private firm, as their employment and pension rights remain the same (and they can pursue their new employer under TUPE if they welch on the deal).

The problem was that some outsourcers promptly dumped their local staff to offshoring (IBM Global Services being a prime example). TUPE still applied for redundancy and pension arrangements, but the government feels (rightly I think) that offshoring firms should take responsibility for the damage they cause to UK communities when employees lose their jobs to offshoring.

Of course this does challenge New Labours former support of offshoring; the policy marks a distinct change in attitude for the Department of Trade and Industry (who have administered TUPE in the UK) who previously were almost universally known as the Department of Trade To India due to their support for seeing UK jobs shipped abroad. Now it appears the DTI have every right to say they are championing British commerce, industry and workers.

The major changes are;

* Widening the regulations to cover cases where services are outsourced, in-sourced or assigned to a client by a new contractor (known as "service provision changes")

* A new duty on a transferor to supply information (called "employee liability information") to the new employer about transferring employees.

* Provisions clarifying how employers and employees can agree to vary contracts, provisions clarifying the circumstances under which it is unfair for employers to dismiss employees for reasons connected with a relevant transfer - this is the real killer for offshoring firms - I would recommend the likes of IBM Global Services return UK jobs offshored to India back to the UK as soon as possible before the class actions mount up. The RSA (Royal Sun Alliance) offshoring contract is an obvious target to test this legislation with, as IBM forced former RSA staff to accept redundancy so they could offshore jobs to India

More information about the new TUPE regs

As a potential means of dealing with offshoring in one fell swoop, TUPE seems near-perfect. How is can be retrospectively applied to employees rendered redundant through offshoring has yet to be seen. However it points the way in which say a future anti-offshoring US administration could deal with the subject.

In the UK, TUPE is actually not as strict as it is in say, France, where they take a dim view of offshoring.

In the UK a "TUPE" case is pursued through the Industrial Tribunals. A case can be pursued either by an individual (expensive unless Legal Aid is granted)a group (i.e. class-action-type) or most likely a union.

In the UK, anyone in full-time employment for 2+ years with an employer is legally due redundancy payments. However the nature of the redundancy normally takes two forms; you can apply for redundancy - if there is a scheme, such as IBM's annual skill-shedding-festival held each year. Or there is compulsory redundancy, whereby you either take the money or are fired. The new TUPE regs "might" appeal to those made compulsorily redundant as a result of offshoring - such as those skilled techies who formerly worked for say Royal and Sun Alliance, were transferred to IBM Global Services and then promptly made compulsory redundant when their jobs were shipped to India. These may have a case against both IBM and RSA.

In the case of staff dismissed, those with 1 years service can be dismissed with few if any consequences (similar to the issue France is "debating" at present). After one year the employer must follow a procedure to dismiss an employee, and that procedure must stand up to scrutiny in an industrial tribunal (where ignorance of the law is not a valid defence). If dismissed with 1+ year service but <2 years, no redundancy is legally payable (though an employer can do so voluntarily). However TUPE does apply. In Europe most employers have figured its not a good idea to dismiss staff with +1 years service without good cause.

The situation in the US, whereby long-service staff have to train their Indian replacements or lose their severence pay is inconceivable in Europe. Here the staff would be advised to refuse by their union or lawyer, whereupon if they were fired they would probably troop en masse to the local employment solicitor (lawyer). An industrial tribunal can award damages to the victims and also demand jobs are reinstated. Failure to comply can see either a contempt-of-court finding (jail) and/or the bailiffs visiting the firm in question. Plus falling-out with the Department of Trade and Industry over industrial relations is not advisable for any business trying to export.

In addition there are European-wide laws about staff consutancy committees, cooling-off periods and all sorts.

Some "free-traders" quote these laws as being anticompetitive, but the current US experience where fanatical anti-Americanism is dressed-up chicken-like as "globalisation" seems to justify their use and extension in Europe.