Tales of the salami slicer……
by Philip
Section 188 of TULRCA is a labyrinth in which unwary employers (and advisers) can get caught. My old muckers at the EEF were involved in a case involving the application of this section.
Section 188 obliges employers to consult unions (or elected representatives) where there is a proposal to dismiss 20 or more as redundant.
This case illustrates two points:
1. In reckoning whether the employer is proposing to dismiss 20 as redundant, you include all redundancy dismissals within a 90 day period. The temptation to salami slice the redundancies into 3 batches of 7 over 3 months is removed. If an employer makes 7 redundant, in January,7 in February and a further 7 in March the section is (or should be)engaged. The law on consultation on redundancies, although emanating originally from EU, does not like salami slicing.
2. In reckoning whether the employer is proposing to dismiss 20 as redundant, you include any employee who has volunteered for redundancy, as a voluntary redundancy amounts to a redundancy dismissal. So agreeing to be sliced by the salami slicer amounts to a redundancy dismissal, if I may extend the analogy to breaking point.
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