Judgment In Woolworths Case

ECJ limits the scope of collective consultation obligations

The European Court of Justice ("the ECJ") has confirmed that the trigger for collective redundancy consultation is the proposal to dismiss for redundancy 20 or more employees in one establishment, e.g. store as opposed to 20 or more employees across the whole of an employer's business – this is therefore a welcome decision for multi-site businesses.

This case concerned the collapse of the national high street retailers Woolworths and Ethel Austin, which resulted in large-scale redundancies and store closures. In the Employment Tribunal, it was decided that each Woolworths and Ethel Austin store was a separate establishment, and that in stores with fewer than 20 employees there was no duty to collectively consult those employees. However, on appeal, the EAT decided that employers should count redundancies across their wider business, as opposed to individual stores. This caused problems for employers