The five employees, based in Larbert, Scotland, had transferred employment from Cook to Telecom Service Centres, also known as Webhelp, around a year before Cook collapsed in September 2019.

Despite moving to a new company, the employees continued to work on Cook accounts from Webhelp’s offices until the tour operator went out of business and they were made redundant.

In a case taken up by their union, TSSA (Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association), the five staff won their tribunal case in Glasgow against Telecom Service Centres over the amount of redundancy payments they should receive from Webhelp after losing their jobs.

The union said: “TSSA successfully argued that redundancy payments had been traditionally paid by the former employer, Thomas Cook, on an enhanced basis according to a matrix based on pay and length of service, for over 20 years and that, under Tupe (Transfer of Undertakings – Protection of Employment) regulations, staff were entitled to redundancy payments on that basis.

“Webhelp denied that anything but statutory redundancy pay was payable.”

The three-day tribunal was held in March 2021 and found in favour of the TSSA, with the redundancy awards settled in November.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes added: “This represents a fantastic result for our TSSA members just before Christmas. I’m delighted that, between them, our members are sharing over £20,000 in settlements.”