The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that “The termination of an employment contract following the worker’s refusal to accept a significant unilateral change to essential elements of the contract which operates to his detriment constitutes a redundancy for the purpose of the directive on collective redundancies”.

European Court was called to rule on a case concerned the Spanish company Gestora Clubs Dir, SL. The company had 126 employees and between 16 and 26 September 2013, Gestora made 10 individual redundancies. Those terminations included that of a worker who agreed to enter into a contract terminating the employment relationship after being informed of a change to her working conditions (namely, a 25% reduction of her salary on the basis of the same objective grounds relied on in the other contract terminations.

Today the European Court found that the fact that an employer — unilaterally and to the detriment of the employee — makes significant changes to essential elements of his employment contract for reasons not related to the individual employee concerned falls within the definition of ‘redundancy’ for the purpose of the directive.

Also, it is stressed that redundancies are characterised by the lack of the worker’s consent. And in the present case, the termination of the employment relationship of the worker who agreed to enter into a contract terminating that relationship arises from the change made unilaterally by her employer to an essential element of the employment contract for reasons not related to that individual worker. Therefore, the termination constitutes a redundancy.

To read the full rule, click here.