Legal Norms’ Formality of Mass Redundancy
With the energy crisis looming and the increase in inflation, the risk of mass redundancies is unfortunately looming for some companies. Here are some keys to better understand the complexity of this subject.
Mass redundancy has a very precise definition and the procedure of consultation of the personnel is specifically regulated by the Federal Act on the Amendment of the Swiss Civil Code. The law considers that a termination is deemed to be collective when the employer terminates the employment relationship with a minimum number of employees within a short period of time. The number of terminations that must be given in order to consider a mass redundancy varies according to the size of the company.
When an employer is contemplating a mass redundancy, the law requires him to first comply with a procedure of consultation of the employees with formal steps to be respected, at the risk of terminations being considered wrongful.
Within the framework of the consultation procedure, the personnel is entitled to make proposals to avoid redundancies by reducing their number, or to mitigate their consequences by means of a social plan, as provided for by the law.
This article develops the following topics:
- mass redundancies
- procedure for consulting the personnel
- notification to the Cantonal Employment Office
- consequences of a mass redundancy
- establishment of an optional or mandatory social plan
- risk of wrongful termination