Redundancy - change of location

Taco Corp

Thankfully this is just a hypothetical (for now) situation that I've been curious about.

On the Citizens information site it states that

"Redundancy can occur where your employer ceases to carry on business in the place where you have been employed. For example, if the firm moves location, this can be a substantial change in your working conditions and may therefore be a reason for redundancy. "

My questions are, apart from the obvious, how far constitutes a change in location? Is across the city a significant change in location? Does a significant change in commute constitute a change?

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemployment_and_redundancy/redundancy/overview_redundancy.html

dpofloinn

A significant change of location I believe refers to a negative change where a commute is unfeasible,or financially not viable for the worker so the workers terms of employment would be changed at the workers expense which would be grounds for redundency as opposed to having to resign . So for example a company relocating from Dublin to Kildare would be a significant positive change if you are already commuting ,but a company moving from Cork to Donegal would most definitly be significant and negative change of conditions.

The_Conductor

I think they're going with the relocation/redeployment rules that have been agreed in the public sector- aka movement of up to 45km from the current location, does not trigger allowances, the right to redundancy or the right to appeals. There is a 'toolkit' to determine the 'fairness' of requested moves- but in general its a pretty rock solid rule- and an improvement on the suggested 80km.

Bandana boy

I believe 17Km is considered the distance where within is reasonable and without is not.

Eoin

The_Conductor wrote: »

I think they're going with the relocation/redeployment rules that have been agreed in the public sector- aka movement of up to 45km from the current location, does not trigger allowances, the right to redundancy or the right to appeals. There is a 'toolkit' to determine the 'fairness' of requested moves- but in general its a pretty rock solid rule- and an improvement on the suggested 80km.

Bandana boy wrote: »

I believe 17Km is considered the distance where within is reasonable and without is not.

Any links for this? The question has come up a few times, and all I can ever find is this vague "reasonable" distance, with no guidelines on what that constitutes. It'd be great to have something a bit more definitive to point people towards!

We moved offices across Dublin a few years ago. The new office was about 16KM away (based on the routes available, not as the crow flies). This was not considered a redundancy situation.

Bandana boy

Eoin wrote: »

Any links for this? The question has come up a few times, and all I can ever find is this vague "reasonable" distance, with no guidelines on what that constitutes. It'd be great to have something a bit more definitive to point people towards!

We moved offices across Dublin a few years ago. The new office was about 16KM away (based on the routes available, not as the crow flies). This was not considered a redundancy situation.

Do not have a link but I know we moved office several years ago 14km and redundancy was not offered ,at the time during negotiations I heard the figure of 17km being mentioned and as the office move was under 17km refusal to move would be seen as a resignation

The_Conductor

I don't have an exact link either- but you can find the revised Haddington Road agreement, on any of the union sites- and its used by Revenue and Social Welfare for assessing tax, credits, entitlements, allowable expenses etc- with whatever is ascribed to the Public Sector used as a max for the Private sector.

Ibec and other organisations were up in arms over it- when the public sector entitlements were higher- but I see they've recently made representations to decouple some of the provisions (such as mileage rates) from those of the Public Sector- as they're having trouble reimbursing certain employee types, without hitting tax issues (there have been a few cases- such as the Wyeth one).


On a personal basis- I moved from Sandyford to Swords- and was given a monthly allowance and an annual lumpsum for agreeing to move with the post, along with the company paying my toll account and reimbursing me for diesel etc (this was private sector post). The payments did incur tax. Those who did not move- were given statutory entitlements. We were told as its an American company that they were unhappy to even be paying statutory rates.