USDAW & Wilson v WW Realisation 1 Ltd, Ethel Austin Ltd & Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [2015]

Woolworths and Ethel Austin were companies active in the high street retail sector throughout the United Kingdom, operating chains of stores under the trade names ‘Woolworths’ and ‘Ethel Austin’ respectively. They became insolvent and went into administration, which resulted in the dismissal on grounds of redundancy of thousands of employees across the United Kingdom.

Against that background, USDAW, in its capacity as a trade union organisation, brought claims before the Liverpool Employment Tribunal and the London Central Employment Tribunal against those two companies on behalf of several thousand of its members, former employees of those companies, who had been dismissed on grounds of