Redundancy – Getting It Right

In the past six months the Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court have issued several decisions about redundancy. The prevalence of redundancy cases serve as a timely reminder that a redundancy must be justified and carried out in a procedurally fair manner. The following are recent redundancy cases that emphasise these requirements.

The employee in this case began working for the family-owned business as sales and marketing consultant. After the resignation of a full-time manager and during the period of the managing director’s terminal illness, the employee’s management role increased by default. Following the managing director’s death, his son and wife took active management roles in the company. A proposal was made to restructure which would mean the loss of the employee’s job and a number of meetings were held culminating in the employee’s position being made redundant. The employee alleged she had been demoted from her