The Court of Justice of the European Union has released its judgment in the case of USDAW and Wilson (C-80/14).
The case arises from the insolvency of Woolworths and Ethel Austin and concerns the meaning of the term “establishment” in section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (TULRCA). Section 188 requires an employer to consult where it proposes to dismiss as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment. TULRCA is derived from Article 1(1)(a) of the European Collective Redundancies Directive (Directive 98/59/EC).
The CJEU held that it is the entity to which the workers made redundant are assigned to carry out their duties that constitutes the ‘establishment’ for the purposes of Article 1(1)(a) of the Directive, and that the relevant provisions should not be interpreted so as to require account to be taken of the total number of redundancies across all the establishments of an undertaking.
The judgment is available on the Curia website here.
Collective redundancies and meaning of “establishment” – CJEU judgment – May 2015
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