Invitation to nominate as employee representative in redundancy situations

The law imposes far-reaching obligations on employers to notify and consult with appropriate representatives about proposed collective redundancies. Where there is no recognised trade union and no current employee representatives who have authority to act for this purpose, use our letter to start the process off.

Affected employees

Where you’re proposing to dismiss as redundant at least 20 employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less, you must consult with the appropriate representatives of the affected employees. The law is set out in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (as amended). “Affected employees” include not only those who may be made redundant but also any employee who may be affected by measures taken in connection with those redundancies.

This will therefore include employees who, although not under threat of redundancy, might be affected by the situation. In calculating the number of proposed redundancies, you have to include volunteers for redundancy and you must also include anyone you’re hoping to redeploy if what you’re proposing is termination of their current contract and an offer of new employment on revised terms.

Appropriate representatives

Where you recognise an independent trade union, its representatives must be the “appropriate representatives”.

However, where there’s no recognised trade union, you may choose between:

• employee representatives already appointed or elected by the employees, provided they have the authority of the affected employees, having regard to the purposes for and method by which they were appointed or elected; or

•  employee representatives specifically elected for the purpose of collective redundancies.

Our Invitation to Nominate Employee Representative in Redundancy Situations assumes there’s no recognised trade union and no current employee representatives who have authority to act for this purpose. In this circumstance, you would need to consult with employee representatives specifically elected for the purpose of the collective redundancy exercise, so you first need to arrange a nomination and election process.

Election rules

The statutory election rules provide:

• the employer shall make such arrangements as are reasonably practical to ensure the election is fair

•  the employer shall determine the number of representatives to be elected so that there are sufficient representatives to represent the interests of all the affected employees, having regard to the number and classes of those employees

•  the employer shall determine whether the affected employees should be represented either by representatives of all affected employees or by representatives of particular classes of those employees

•  before the election, the employer shall determine the term of office as employee representatives so that it is of sufficient length to enable relevant information to be given and consultations to be completed

•  the candidates for election as employee representatives are affected employees on the date of the election

•  no affected employee will be unreasonably excluded from standing for election

•  all affected employees on the date of the election are entitled to vote for employee representatives

•  the employees entitled to vote may vote for as many candidates as there are representatives to be elected to represent them, or, if there are to be representatives for particular classes of employees, for as many candidates as there are representatives to be elected to represent their particular class

•  the election will be conducted so as to secure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, those voting do so in secret and the votes are accurately counted.

Our letter covers all this information and allows you to propose how many representatives there will be and whether they will represent the interests of all affected employees or whether they will be divided up by department/location.