United Kingdom -Union wins major compensation for former Woolworths workers -January 20, 2012

The shopworkers' union Usdaw has won compensation worth up to a massive UKP 67.8 million (€ 81.6 million) for over 24,000 former employees of Woolworths made redundant when this retail firm collapsed at the end of 2008. By early January 2009 the administrators had closed all of its stores, offices and distribution centres, and made nearly 30,000 people redundant in the process. Usdaw made a claim on behalf of its members for a Protective Award after the administrators failed in their legal duty to consult with the union before making redundancies. In a judgement released on 20 January, the Employment Tribunal in London found that the administrators had failed in their legal obligations to consult with Usdaw and awarded its members compensation of 60 days pay, capped at UKP330 (€397) a week, the maximum payable in these circumstances. Nevertheless, union officials are disappointed that the compensation award excludes all former employees (about 3,000) who happened to work in smaller stores where fewer than 20 redundancies were made.

English: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/newsevents/news/2012/jan/usdawwins ...

 

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl or the communications officer of the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2012.

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