Hundreds of Rivus staff ‘left in limbo’ as BT Group contract end nears

With just over a month to go before BT Group’s fleet management contract ends at Rivus, hundreds of employees do not know if their jobs are safe.

Fleet News understands that around 660 staff at Rivus employed in management, admin, call centre and technician roles are yet to be told whether they will be transferred to the new providers Holman and Arval, have jobs in a restructured Rivus or face redundancy.

Sources suggest that Rivus and the new contract providers for BT Group have been unable to agree how many Rivus employees are in scope under TUPE – Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) – regulations.

The purpose of TUPE is to protect employees if the business in which they are employed changes hands. Muddying the waters is the fact that, in this case, it is not a business acquisition, but a contract that has been won.

Furthermore, Holman is served by a network of independent garages, operating a different business model to Rivus, which operates its own sites.

Nevertheless, in July, Rivus chief executive Victoria Knight told Fleet News that she anticipated a TUPE element in the transition of services.

When approached by Fleet News for an update, Rivus declined to comment while discussions were ongoing.

BT Group announced in March that Holman had been awarded the contract to maintain its commercial vehicle fleet, while it would be transferring the management of its company cars to Arval UK, ending its long-standing relationship with Rivus from September 30.

The telecoms giant operates a fleet of around 41,000 vehicles, the majority of which are LCVs.

Garage network more than halved

Four months later, in July, Rivus revealed a major restructure in an effort to cut costs after struggling to replace business lost from losing the fleet maintenance deal with BT Group.

The company confirmed to Fleet News that it would be closing 48 of its light commercial vehicle (LCV) garages, cutting its existing network by more than half, from 78 to just 30 sites including its heavy goods vehicle (HGV) network.

The decision to close so many of its garages, it said, was to reduce a “heavy cost base” relating to legacy business systems, ageing garage facilities, and a “complex people structure”.

While maintaining a reduced network in what it described as “strategic locations”, Rivus said that some in the Greater London area will become dedicated to solely providing mission-critical service, maintenance, and repair (SMR) services to the Metropolitan Police Service from November 1.

There will be a further two garages opened later this year, it said, to support the delivery of the Met Police contract, which it secured in March. 

Rivus previously told Fleet News its mobile services and HGV businesses were unaffected by the restructure, but it did not confirm how many jobs were at risk elsewhere.

It said that a "significant number" of affected employees would be in scope to transfer under employment law to BT Group's new fleet providers, with a further number in scope for the Rivus restructuring programme.

At the time, it said its priority was to finalise these details with BT Group’s new providers, the trade unions and its employees before sharing any information outside of Rivus. 

“All staff are in limbo with five weeks to go and no idea if anybody has a job or not,” a Rivus employee

Despite sources informing Fleet News that some positions have already been made redundant, Rivus has categorically denied that it has made any redundancies or given any staff notice of redundancy

One employee, who asked not to be named, told Fleet News: “We were advised that individual consultation should be completed by the end of August. As it currently stands, all staff are in limbo with five weeks to go and have no idea if anybody has a job or not.”

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) is representing Rivus employees working in admin, call centre and technician roles, while Prospect is involved in negotiations on behalf of managers who are risk of redundancy.

Allan Eldred, CWU national officer, told affected staff in a recent online meeting, that the union believes TUPE applies to all employees.

“There’s no question in my mind that Holman are aware of what those legal obligations are,” he said. 

“We have considerable experience of dealing with TUPE and of dealing with redundancies as well – and you can rest assured the CWU will be doing absolutely everything it can to protect members’ interests in this highly regrettable situation.”

Concluding the online meeting, telecom and financial services (TFE) executive member Kate Walsh – who chairs the Rivus national team – thanked attendees for their questions but said: “Sadly we don’t have all the answers at this point in time, but hopefully over the next few weeks things will start to become clearer.”