Miss M Williams v Bespoke Hotels Ltd — 2022

Miss Melanie Williams worked as Conference and Banqueting Manager at The Duke of Cornwall Hotel. The respondent employer dismissed around 56 employees as redundant on 2 February 2021 and entered creditors voluntary liquidation on 12 February 2021. The tribunal found that the company did not recognise a trade union, had no elected or appointed employee representatives with authority to be consulted, and made no arrangements to elect such representatives.

On the protective award claim, the tribunal held that the respondent was proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees at one establishment within 90 days, that it had not complied in any respect with its consultation obligations under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and that the special circumstances defence was not engaged because there had been no consultation at all. The claim was well founded and the tribunal made a declaration and ordered a protective award for the full 90-day protected period.

The claimant's breach of contract claim also succeeded. The tribunal found that she was entitled to 12 weeks' notice under her contract, that no notice had been given, and that she should be paid 12 weeks' net pay. The judgment calculated that amount at £4,349.76, with no deduction for tax.

The judgment's recoupment section records a total monetary award and prescribed element for the notice-pay award, with the prescribed element running from 2 February 2021 to 27 April 2021 and no excess over that element. The extracted text does not state a separate cash figure for the 90-day protective award, so the award is recorded by entitlement rather than by quantified sum in this extraction.