Collective redundancy consultation: election of employee representatives

By Darren Newman, Brightmine Consultant Editor

Where an employer is proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less, s.188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULR(C)A) requires that consultations must be carried out with “appropriate representatives” of the affected employees. (In Usdaw and another v WW Realisation 1 Ltd (in liquidation) and others [2015] IRLR 577 ECJ, the European Court of Justice confirmed that “establishment” means the entity to which the employees are assigned to carry out their duties, not the employer’s organisation as a whole.)

Where the affected employees are covered by union recognition, the representatives to be consulted are those of the trade union concerned. However, where there is no union recognition in place, the employer has a choice. It can either carry out the consultation with established employee representatives (such as a staff committee) or arrange for an election of representatives specifically for the purpose of redundancy consultation.

This article is concerned with how to organise and run such an election of employee representatives, in accordance with s.188A of TULR(C)A.

In this guide, learn about:

• The number of representatives
• Term of office
• Timings
• Conducting the election
• Nominations
• Insufficient nominations
• Election addresses
• The rights of candidates and voters
• Methods of voting
• The ballot paper
• The ballot box
• The voting booth
• Marking the ballot
• Timing of the ballot
• Absentee ballots
• Counting the votes
• Announcing the result
• Failure to elect representatives
• Loss of a representative

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