On 21 September in a ruling handed down in Polish case the CJEU affirmed the principle whereby an employer is obliged, in line with the EU directive on collective redundancies, to consult with employee representatives when the employer intends, to the detriment of the employees, to unilaterally undertake amendments to working conditions based on economic grounds, and if refused by the employees will lead to the termination of the employment relationship.
The Polish national case was brought because an employer had notified its staff of a change in the calculations of a career length based award scheme without having consulted the employee representatives. The Polish courts turned to the CJEU, which recalled for this landmark case that it had previously included in the scope of EU Directive 98/59 on collective redundancies (which requires employee representative information and consultation) situations where employers proceed unilaterally and to the detriment of workers with substantial changes to essential elements of the employment contract on grounds unrelated to the worker (c.f.
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