EAT Redundancy – COLLECTIVE CONSULTATION AND INFORMATION
Employees challenged a failure to make a protective award under s.189 of TULR(C)A 1992, on four grounds. The first – that MSF v Refuge Assurance should not be followed- was rejected, but the other grounds succeeded. The Tribunal had failed to place the burden of proof on the employer to show that representatives were appropriate; did not make any finding whether as a body they had the authority of the affected employees to represent them in respect of the proposed dismissals; did not have regard to the purposes of the body to which they were elected/co-opted/appointed, nor the process of co-option etc., and in particular wrongly thought that the fact that the body was expressly not empowered to negotiate was irrelevant to whether they had authority to be consulted with a view to reaching agreement; wrongly thought that it was sufficient for an employer to provide an opportunity to representatives to discuss ways of avoiding the dismissals, reducing the numbers to be dismissed, and mitigating the consequences of the dismissals, when it was incumbent on an employer to ensure those topics were raised for discussion; and wrongly concluded that a letter sent to employees had disclosed the matters required to be disclosed by s.188(4).
Appeal allowed, but remitted to the same Tribunal for reconsideration and further fact-finding.
Judges:
Langstaff P J
Citations:
[2013] UKEAT 0339 – 12 – 1904
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 17 November 2022; Ref: scu.472858