- C1 /C2 -IN PERSON C3/C4 – NO ATTENDANCE FOR THE v Respondent — 2022

The four claimants brought claims for a protective award arising from dismissals with immediate effect on 30 June 2020. The tribunal recorded that the respondent ceased trading on that date, that there had been no consultation before the dismissals, that there was no union representation and no elected employee representatives, and that more than 600 employees were dismissed nationally. The only issue left for determination was whether the relevant employees were assigned to a single establishment at which 20 or more employees were dismissed as redundant within 90 days, for the purposes of s.188 TULR(C)A 1992.

The tribunal found that none of the individual stores concerned by these claims, in Bristol, Bath and Cheltenham, had more than 20 employees. It accepted that the respondent operated as a national retailer organised into four geographical regions, that the South region included the claimants' stores, and that the region had a Regional Manager and regional meetings, training and targets. It also accepted that staff could be sent to other stores within the region and that sales or operational cover could involve more than one store, but it found that these features did not displace the primary allocation of each claimant to an individual store as their place of work.

Applying the authorities it cited, including Athinaiki Chartopoiia, USDAW v Ethel Austin and Lyttle v Bluebird UK Bidco 2, the tribunal held that the establishment was the individual store, not the region and not the business nationally. It considered the regional structure to be a standard organisational arrangement and found that the links between stores within the region were not sufficiently extensive to make the region the relevant establishment. Because each store had fewer than 20 employees, the statutory threshold was not met and the claims for a protective award were dismissed.