The Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 (SI 2004/3426) are a United Kingdom statutory instrument. This follows the EU Information and Consultation of Employees Directive 2002/14/EC establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees.
Provisions The ICE Regulations require that employees are informed and consulted on all contract or workplace organisation changes.ICER 2004 reg 20 Consultation means an "obligation to negotiate" with "a view to reaching agreement".Junk v Kühnel (2005) C-188/03, and ICER 2004 reg 20(4)(d) The penalty on an employer for failure to consult or follow the Regulations is up to £75,000 for each violation.ICER 2004 regs 22 – 23, e.g. Amicus v Macmillan Publishers Ltd IRLR 378 Elias J imposed a £55,000 penalty on an employer who failed to set up an election for employee representatives.
Negotiation and consultation may take place under a voluntary agreement with an employer, particularly through a trade union under a collective agreement. If there is no voluntary agreement, formal consultation procedure may be triggered by at least 2% of employees,ICER 2004 reg 7(2) as amended by the Employment Rights (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019/731 Pt 4 reg.16(3) reducing the threshold from 10% and then requires election of a body of all staff. This procedure must "enable the information and consultation representatives to meet the employer at the relevant level of management depending on the subject under discussion".ICER 2004 reg 20(4)(c)
See also UK labour law European labour law
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References
Bibliography PL Davies and C Kilpatrick, 'UK Worker Representation after Single Channel' (2004) 33 Industrial Law Journal 121 KD Ewing and GM Truter, 'The Information and Consultation of Employees' Regulations: Voluntarism's Bitter Legacy' (2005) 68 Modern Law Review 626
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