On April 30th, the ECJ handed down its long awaited decision on collective redundancies. The court clarified the concept of establishment as it applies in terms of it being a catalyst for the process of employee representative’s information & consultation (I&C), when economic units are being dissolved (in the case under review a retailer had avoided implementing the I&C process due to the fact that that its individual economic units were too small). The court opted for a ‘minimalist’ definition much to the disappointment of British unions who had been hoping for a broader understanding of the concept.
The source of this ruling dates back to an event surrounding a well-known British retailer that underwent drastic restructuring moves (c.f. article No. 8183). The retailer had not been legally obliged to enter into I&C proceedings over the significant concomitant redundancies with the employee representatives. The USDAW union pushed for the notion of establishment as laid out in Directive 98/59 on collective redundancies be interpreted as applying to the retailer’s whole commercial activity, be
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