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Voluntary redundancies
All employees who volunteer to be dismissed as redundant must be included when working out whether 20 or more redundancy dismissals are proposed. Only those employees who genuinely end their employment through mutual agreement i.e. who resign before the employer has made any proposals to dismiss employees as redundant, are excluded.
Bus and coach manufacturer Optare carried out a redundancy consultation exercise in which it asked for voluntary redundancies, reserving the right to refuse to accept any offer to take voluntary redundancy. Three volunteers came forward and the company made 17 compulsory redundancies. The T&G general union argued that the company was making 20 redundancies in total, triggering the statutory obligation to consult collectively. The EAT agreed. The three employees had only volunteered for redundancy “because they had been invited to do so”. This did not mean that their employment had been ended by mutual agreement.
Optare Group Ltd v TGWU EAT/0143/07
It is for the tribunal, looking at all the facts, to decide whether employment really did end by mutual agreement, or whether, in truth, the employee came forward to volunteer following an announcement that redundancies are proposed (Graff Diamonds Limited v Boatwright UKEAT/0148/10/RN).