Claimant v E M MacKenzie & Co. Ltd - In Administration — 2019

The case was decided on the papers, without the parties present. The first claimant was Unite the Union, with the remaining claimants being the individual employees listed in the schedule to the claim form. Unite had originally contended that it was the appropriate representative for consultation, but later said it could not locate the Recognition Agreement, after which the individual claimants sought protective awards under the 1992 Act. The respondent was in administration, did not defend the protective award claim, and the Administrator confirmed that there was no objection to the protective award being granted.

The tribunal found that the respondent had failed to meet the requirements for the election of employee representatives under s.188A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and that the claims that it had failed to comply with s.188 were well founded. It noted that, under s.189(4), the protected period in a protective award is whatever length the tribunal considers just and equitable, up to a maximum of 90 days.

The tribunal made twenty-two protective awards, one in favour of each of the twenty-two claimants, and held that the protected period for each award was 90 days beginning on 9 March 2018. The judgment states that this date was the date of dismissal by reason of redundancy of each claimant save for the first claimant. It also records that the remaining claims were sisted meantime.