Part Time working & Redundancy

DSN

Hi, I am currently on 3 day week using parental leave. This is up soon & would like to make it a permanent arrangement (work for US multi-national). I talked to my boss about this (I know him for years very sound & supportive) & he said he has no problem with it & would support but he gets a redundancy target every year from US & said that if i was part time then I would be very much at risk as he is obviously not gonna choose a to lose a full timer over a part timer.
totally understand where he comming from & this was all said just as friends & him being honest & am glad he was upfront about it.
My questions were - whats everyone opinion on this & secondly if i go part time & in 6mths or a year I am made redundant, would my redundancy be based on my 3 day week salary or my 5 day week salary? (have been in the company over 10 years)
Just weighing up the pros & cons I guess.
thanks,
DSN

vikingdub

There are a number of issues here.

Redundancy relates to the job not the person, a redundancy situation arises if your job ceases to exist and you are not replaced, where more than one person is employed in a particular job description, selection must be fair.

In selecting a particular employee for redundancy, an employer is obliged apply selection criteria that are reasonable and are applied in a fair manner. You are entitled to bring a claim for unfair dismissal if you consider that you were unfairly selected for redundancy or consider that a genuine redundancy situation did not exist. Examples of these situations might include where the custom and practice in your workplace has been last in, first out and your selection did not follow this procedure. Another example may be where your contract of employment sets out criteria for selection which were not subsequently followed.


the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001 which provides that part-time employees cannot be treated in a less favourable manner than comparable full-time employees in relation to conditions of employment, being a part time employee, on its own, would not satisify the requirement for a fair and objective selection, however, the number of hours worked could be used as one aspect of a redundancy matrix which could satisify the fairness requirement.

Statutory redundancy payments are based on your salary, where an employee has been put on short time or reduced working hours, at the employer's request, less than 12 months prior to the redundancy, the redundancy payment will be based on the full time pay, for statutory redundancy payments there is a cap of €600.00 per week, if you earned less than €600.00 it will be based on your actual weekly pay.

An employer is free to pay more than the statutory redundancy payment but will only receive the employer's rebate based on the statutory cap. Redundancy payments in excess of the statutory payment could be liable for income tax and if high enough may result in your entitlement to Job Seekers benefit being delayed, the number weeks delay will depend on the payment.

As you have requested the change in working hours to part time hours, you will have to sign a new contract of employment and I believe that your employer would be entitled to pay your redundancy based on the new contract salary but on your combined service.

Your employer seems to be operating outside the legislation by enforcing an annual redundancy target, unless the jobs cease to exist, it is not a redundancy situation. However, if nobody complains and the company does not apply for the rebate they are unlikely to have any difficulties under the legislation. However, if it is not a redundancy as set out above, you could be seen to have made yourself unemployed and therefore would not be entitled to Job Seekers benefit.