February 06, 2012
As abandoned Woolworths stores up and down the country begin to find new owners, so too are ex-staff beginning to overcome the dreadful state of events that befell one of the UK’s biggest household retailers in 2008.
This week it was revealed that over 24,000 ex-Woolworths employees have been awarded a combined £67.8m in compensation after being made redundant when the firm collapsed, according to shop workers union Usdaw.
The retailer went into administration on 27 November 2008, and by early January 2009 administrators had closed all Woolworths stores, offices and distribution centres, forcing almost 30,000 into redundancy as a result.
Usdaw accused administrators of failing in their legal duty to consult with the union before making redundancies, and as such, an Employment Tribunal awarded its members compensation of 60 days' pay, capped at £330 a week, the maximum available in these circumstances.
However, the award excludes all former employees who worked in smaller stores where fewer than 20 redundancies were made. Therefore, roughly 3,000 employees may never receive compensation.
“My delight at the award for the vast majority of our members is tempered by the clear injustice that workers in smaller stores could miss out,” said John Hannett, Usdaw General Secretary.
“Usdaw thinks that the UK's current interpretation of the law on collective redundancies is both unfair and possibly a breach of the European Directive which seeks to protect workers in large scale redundancy situations.”
“We are taking further expert legal advice and it is highly likely we will appeal against this part of the judgment.”
