What Managing a Mass Layoff Procedure Means
Managing a mass layoff procedure is a process built on the bright lines of Article 49 of the Georgian Labour Code. A mass dismissal is the employer's termination of employment contracts within 30 calendar days on a ground not conditioned by the employee's person or conduct or by the expiry of the contract: with not fewer than 10 employees — in an organisation employing more than 20 but fewer than 100 employees; or with not fewer than 10 percent of employees — in an organisation employing more than 100.
Managing the procedure means arranging the thresholds, the deadlines and the documents correctly: a decision that looks merely numerical in fact demands precise simultaneous action on three fronts — legal, organisational and communicational — because breaching the statute's deadlines turns the dismissal itself into the subject of a dispute.
The 45-Day Notice and the Effectiveness Rule
The procedure's central deadline is the written notice: the employer must, not less than 45 calendar days before the mass dismissal, send written notice to the Minister and to the employees whose contracts will be terminated. A copy of the notice sent to the Minister goes to the employees' association or, in its absence, to the employees' representatives. The mass dismissal enters into force after 45 calendar days from the dispatch of the notice to the Minister — meaning the process plan opens and closes with the 45-day barrier.
Consultations and the Mandatory Information
An employer planning a mass dismissal must, within a reasonable period, commence consultations with the employees' association with the intention of reaching a possible agreement. The consultations must cover, at a minimum, ways and means of avoiding the mass dismissal or reducing the number of employees to be dismissed, and support for the re-employment or retraining of dismissed employees. The employees must be given the opportunity to submit constructive proposals.
The documentary side is also precisely defined: the employer must notify the association or the representatives in writing of the reasons for the planned dismissal, the number and categories of employees to be dismissed, the total number and categories of employees in the organisation, the period over which the dismissal will be carried out, the selection criteria and the payment of compensation; a copy of that notice also goes to the Minister. At the selection stage the statute's prohibitions must also be considered: termination is impermissible on grounds of discrimination, during the period following an employee's notification of pregnancy, during military or alternative labour service, or while serving as a lay juror — save for the exceptional grounds named directly in the law.