Redundancy and re-employed

Annieindublin

Registered User
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359
This is an odd one. Or maybe not..

made redundant and immediately reemployed by a new company, set up by the same (overseas) employer.

so everyone was told out of the blue that the company was closing, statutory redundancy would be paid to everyone. The company has only been around since 2016 and about a dozen staff. No premises, all remote workers, even pre covid. Major shock as they were all busy and had work schedules going well into 2024. An hour later they were told that they’d be re hired by a new company. All owned by the same group. They are getting redundancy, annual bonus payments (not in the contracts but paid usually in December, up to 15%). And the T&C of the new contracts are identical.

so the question is why? Why set up a phoenix company and part with a load of cash? What’s in it for them?

no one has sight of the financials, I suspect they’d tell little anyway, there might be some software licensing payments or debts that’s about the only thing they can think of.
from the staff viewpoint they are restarting the clock if they decide to wind it up again, or fire anyone, but that aside.. anyone got any idea why an an employer would do this?

the parent group is based in USA. They have an Irish subsidiary and staff here are employed by the sub not the head company.

losing sleep over this and the new contracts have to be signed this week.

there is no union rep.
 
It's very unusual and may be a reflection of a lack of knowledge on your employers behalf. I've been in a situation with a US employer where they have set up new entities, transferred staff into it but TUPE applies so your length of service is not impacted.

I'd ask the dumb question of your employer, why?
 
the question has been asked but not answered,
the employees are techs not finance people So didn’t dig.

good point about TUPE, the new contracts are identical, the bit that sits oddly is the redundancy payments.
if they’ve been paid up (not massive sums but we reckon about 150k in total) does that not restart the clock for length of service?
 
good point about TUPE, the new contracts are identical, the bit that sits oddly is the redundancy payments.
if they’ve been paid up (not massive sums but we reckon about 150k in total) does that not restart the clock for length of service?
You can buy out employees conditions of employment but I've never heard of one where length of service was bought out.
 
what I meant was, if the phoenix company decides to fire everyone, they are all on probation again, or closes up in a year no one will have any length of service.
 
Maybe, it’s been a stressful year so maybe I’m overthinking.

i guess I’m worried they’ll shut up shop entirely in 6 months… but if that was on the cards they would probably do that now anyway.
might be good to dust off the cv,

also while the sums are small to the company redundancy payments for 6 years service as opposed to 5 could make a difference.

aged 60 you see events like this through a different lens
 
also while the sums are small to the company redundancy payments for 6 years service as opposed to 5 could make a difference.

If you have a look on Citizens Information you may be able to check out the difference in the payments.

Perhaps you could give the WRC a call and see if they can give you any advice.

Workplace Relations Commission - Information and Customer Service​

O'Brien Road
Carlow
R93 E920

Opening Hours: Mon. to Fri. 9.30am to 1pm, 2pm to 5pm
Tel: (059) 917 8990
Locall: 0818 80 80 90
Homepage: https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/
 
The difference for a year is only 1,200. I guess that isn’t a lot.

maybe it is just ignorance on their part or a desire to wrap up existing contracts for some reason. Anyway it’ll be in the bank in the new year so it’ll be good to have that locked away.
 
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