What do you do when you haven't got time to consult?

Real life and legal obligations - not always a happy mixture. In real life things don't go to plan - customers change their minds and demand changes in your work plan. Suddenly you don't need as many people or for as long as you expected. You have no choice - there is no other work and they want them off site.

If only this had happened two weeks later as expected. You had a redundancy agreement in place with the Union for that. But this? Out of the blue came the call. What choice did you have? Surely the law will see the sense in what you did? Surely an Employment Tribunal (ET) will understand that it wasn't reasonably practicable to consult with the union over the loss of 50 jobs immediately.

Life, like ET cases, is full of disappointment. Sympathy - yes; a reduction in the protective award - no.

But wait a minute, the Employment Appeal Tribunal have another look and we get some daylight. Not much - we had sufficient time to do something and we didn't do it - but perhaps a maximum award (90 days pay) was too harsh and needs a rethink.

Wragge & Co's employment experts provide further guidance on the issues in Shanahan Engineering -v- Unite, a real life story of construction folk, and provide some action points to consider in light of this judgement.