Redundancy query

curiousJudg

hoping somebody could advise.

Husband worked for 3 years for a company, a year ago he was given p45 and told that owner was now operating a new company, exactly same type of company just different name. Same owner, same work, same wages etc - nothing changed and husband continued on without a break at all in service.

Company laid off staff this week now and are saying that because the company has only been in existence for a year that they don't have to pay redundancy as you have to have in excess of 104 weeks work carried out. My husband and the others have worked well in excess of three years continuously for the same owner, albeit he changed the details of the company is there anything we can do here? it was a very sneaky move and surely not allowed?

OMM 0000

What the owner did is called phoenixing (google "phoenix company") and it may be illegal. It depends if he screwed over creditors or not.

Your husband did change employer. I don't think he has a case, sorry.

curiousJudg

Hi, okay thanks for that i'll look it up.

Just to clarify, both companies are still active, my husband's employment was just switched from one to the other, he never stopped working at all he was just told that a different name will appear on his wage slip. Same owner entire way through.

CiboC

It depends on the circumstances but from what you have outlined your husband has a strong case for continuity of service for redundancy as, for the purposes of redundancy legislation, a transfer of business does not break the employees’ continuity of service. Instead it is transferred to their new employment.

see:

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/contracts_of_employment/transfer_of_business.html

for more detail.

curiousJudg

Thank you for that, it is along the lines of what I was thinking, because there wasn't even an hour's break in service and it was just mentioned in passing as such that he would see a different company name on his payslip.

look up TUPE