Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Social policy - Approximation of laws - Transfers of undertakings - Safeguarding of employees' rights - Directive 77/187 - Scope - Recourse to an outside undertaking for carrying out cleaning work previously performed by the staff of the undertaking - Included - Activity involving a single employee - Immaterial

(Council Directive 77/187, Art. 1(1))

Summary

Article 1(1) of Council Directive 77/187 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of businesses is to be interpreted as covering a situation in which an undertaking entrusts by contract to another undertaking the responsibility for carrying out cleaning operations which it previously performed itself, even though, prior to the transfer, such work was carried out by a single employee.

Neither the fact that such a transfer relates only to an ancillary activity of the transferor not necessarily connected with its objects, nor the fact that it is not accompanied by any transfer of tangible assets, nor the number of employees concerned is capable of exempting such an operation from the scope of the directive since the decisive criterion for establishing whether there is a transfer for the purposes of that directive is whether the business in question retains its identity, as indicated in particular by the actual continuation or resumption by the new employer of the same or similar activities.