Mrs Dowling in person For the First v Fitzgerald Lighting Cornwall Ltd (In Voluntary Liquidation) Secretary of State for Business, Energy and 1 other — 2019

This was a collective consultation case under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The tribunal found that Fitzgerald Lighting Cornwall Limited was proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees as redundant at one establishment within 90 days or less, that there were no recognised trade unions and no elected employee representatives, and that the workforce was told on 29 May 2019 that redundancies were highly likely.

The tribunal found that on 30 May 2019 the whole workforce was called to a meeting by an insolvency practitioner and, apart from four accounts employees who remained employed for a further week, employees were dismissed with immediate effect on grounds of redundancy. The four national sales representatives were telephoned immediately after the meeting and were also told they had been dismissed on 30 May 2019. The tribunal accepted that the national sales function was maintained at the Bodmin factory and that those employees were an integral part of the business based there.

On the evidence, the tribunal found that the respondent failed to undertake any or any adequate consultation with any of the claimants before dismissal. It held that the named individual claimants were entitled to pursue a protective award personally because there were no recognised trade unions and no elected employee representatives. The tribunal therefore found the complaint that the respondent failed to comply with section 188 well founded.

A protective award was made in favour of all 41 claimants for a protected period of 90 days. The tribunal stated that the period commenced on 30 May 2019 for the claimants dismissed on that date, and on 7 June 2019 for the four accounts employees who were dismissed a week later. The judgment did not set out a single monetary figure for the award in the extracted text, but it declared that each claimant was entitled to remuneration for the relevant 90-day period.