Collective redundancy decision

The European Court of Justice has just handed down its judgment in the Woolworths case which looked at whether an ‘establishment’ in terms of redundancy consultations consisted of one location or the employer as a whole.

The Court has held that an ‘establishment’ refers to an individual workplace (i.e. where workers are assigned to carry out their duties) and not to the employer as a whole.

This means that Woolworths was correct only to engage in collective consultation with workers where the total number of redundancies exceeded 20 over a 90 day period at a single establishment (or store).  It did not need to engage in collective consultation with staff who worked at a store that employed less than 20 employees.

The decision paves the way to formally reversing a 2013 decision by the Employment Appeals Tribunal.