Murray and another v Foyle Meats Ltd (Northern Ireland)

Murray and another v Foyle Meats Ltd (Northern Ireland) [1999] IRLR 562

Facts

The slaughtering division of Foyle Meats Ltd. was experiencing a decline. The corporation terminated one production line in the slaughter hall, which resulted in the elimination of 35 meat plant employees' positions inside the slaughter hall. The workers all had flexibility provisions included into their contracts, and they sometimes swapped departments to work in the boning or loading hall, among other places.

The company made the decision to eliminate certain positions. All of the candidates were chosen because they have experience working in many departments around the facility. All of the workers were protected by the same contract, but only those from one part were eligible for employment. According to the complainants, the whole staff ought to have been taken into consideration.

Held

It was the responsibility of the employer to demonstrate the basis for the termination, which was to establish that there was a decreased need, and that this was the cause of the redundancy. The mistake that was committed in the Nelson case was the assertion that "because the work which he was employed to do continue to exist, he was not redundant". The issue of whether or whether the dismissal is related to the decrease in the criteria is one that is fact-based rather than legal in nature. It is not necessary to make the language of the Act any more convoluted than it already is. 

Lord Irvine LC came to the conclusion that the operatives were unnecessary, and he said that "the language of the [Employment Rights Act 1996 section 139(1)(b)] is in my view simplicity itself." He made reference to the case of Nelson v. BBC [1977] ICR 649, Megaw LJ, Roskill LJ, and Browne LJ, all of whom had contributed to the incorrect propagation of the "contract test" approach. The term "attributable" included in the legislation served as the basis for a straightforward test of causality that was applied.

‘It asks two questions of fact. The first is whether one or other of various states of economic affairs exists. In this case, the relevant one is whether the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind have diminished. . . In the present case, the tribunal found as a fact that the requirements of the business for employees to work in the slaughter hall had diminished. . . That, in my opinion, is the end of the matter.’