The dismissal for organizational reasons according to the known Section 52 a) to c) of the Labour Code is in practice the most common case of termination of the employment by the employer. If the dismissal is given on grounds that the employer is cancelled or moved away, the interpretation of the relevant provisions does not create significant problems and the employees’ possibilities to successfully challenge the validity of such dismissal are in fact limited.
However, the case of dismissal on grounds of redundancy resulting from the organizational change may be relatively disputable. So far there have been opinions that if the employer still has available similar working positions where the employee could work, the termination on grounds of redundancy is not permitted, or that the employer is in such a case at least obliged to offer such a position to the employee before dismissal. The Supreme Court now ruled quite clearly that its opinion is different.
In the case in question the employer decided on organizational change in order to increase the work efficiency, as a result of which the relevant employee became redundant. For such a reason the employee also received a dismissal notice. When the employee subsequently claimed the invalidity of the dismissal he primarily argued that although the job position was cancelled, the employer had number of other jobs of similar job description at the time of the dismissal.
Lower courts agreed with such arguments. However, according to the Supreme Court, they did so completely wrong. The Supreme Court expressed an opinion according to which the dismissal on grounds of redundancy cannot be invalid only for the reason that there are other available jobs which are similar to the one employee had performed under the employment agreement. The employer has no obligation to offer this available position to the employee. The only condition, which must be met, is that the employer prior to the dismissal makes a decision on the organizational change in order to regulate a number of employees and their qualification structure so that it corresponds to the employer’s needs.
The ruling of the Supreme Court brings a clarification in respect of the conditions for dismissal on grounds of redundancy and should be therefore appreciated by employers.
Note.: In the present case the employer was represented by Pavel Dejl, a partner of the law firm Kocián Šolc Balaštík.