More UK IT jobshave beencut after Marks
& Spencer (M&S) reducedits in-house IT
support team by 76 people through a combination of redundancies and
transferring workers to a supplier.
M&S hired Indian offshore service provider
Cognizant
Technology Solutions as part of a project to consolidate its
supplier base for infrastructure and application support.
A total of 20 people were made redundant and a further56
transferred to Cognizant under
TUPE regulations. These people were technicians based in the
Stockley Park business park office.
The consultation period for these workers ended last month.
"Cognizant is going to provide technical support for M&S
staff," said an M&S spokesperson. "This was a project to
consolidate our supplier base for infrastructure and application
support. We did it to improve IT service quality and make it more
efficient for the business."
As a result of employee concerns, the company was asked at its
AGM "whether it was satisfied that [it] acted with integrity
and moral justification when IT staff at Stockley Park were
transferred to Cognizant."
M&S replied,"This is a very serious issue. M&S is very
satisfied that it completed this transfer in a rigorous and
appropriate way and employees were consulted fully. It must be
stressed that M&S is not importing labour at all, but isworking
to ensure that it istransferring these skills in the right way to a
new supplier. We are satisfied that the TUPE transfer regulations
have been applied appropriately. M&S has a very good reputation
in relation to these types of TUPE transfer and has acted with real
propriety."
Under TUPE, workers automatically transfer to the supplier from
the customer under the same pay and conditions. But
there are ways for thecustomer and supplier to make
redundanciesbefore or after TUPE.This is possible if there is
an economic, technical or organisational (ETO) reason for making
them redundant.
Mark Lewis, partner and head of outsourcing at law firm Berwin
Leighton Paisner, said,"This is regularly seen in the context of
TUPE."