Analysis and Reflections Collective Redundancies: Judicial Fine-Tuning of a Classic Concept of EU Labour Law

This contribution analyses five recent rulings of the Court of Justice on one of the classic and most important pieces of EU legislation in the field of labour law: the Collective Redundancies Directive. The Directive instructs employers who are contemplating collective redundancies to consult workers' representatives and other relevant stakeholders with a view to finding ways to possibly avoid mass dismissals or to mitigate their social consequences. The Court offers important clarification on when this process must be initiated by clarifying the precise meaning of the concept of "collective redundancies".