shut down

youcrazyjesus!

I work in a very small company, I am not the best of friends with the owner. They are not doing too well financially and have few assets. Practically everything is leased, rented or HP. There is talk now that they might reduce my hours because of the downturn. They have been doing things recently like making me repeatedly do menial tasks over and over again and running to the shops for silly errands. I am a highly skilled worker. They definitely want to get rid of me. I said if they want rid of me I'd literally dance out the front door, as long as they pay me the required redundancy, as I have many years service. They say they would just close down and re-open under a different name if it came to that. Is this legal? And do you have any other advice?

Thanks.

brightspark

Even if they do you can still claim statutory redundancy.

http://www.entemp.ie/publications/employment/2004/guideredscheme.pdf

15. How to actually make an application to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Redundancy Payments Section) for a redundancy lump sum in situations where the employer is unable or unwilling to pay the amount due to the employee

In this situation, the Department steps in and pays the money from the Social Insurance Fund. The right of the employee to the payment must first be established either by a completed Redundancy Certificate (RP50 – Part or, in the absence of that, a Decision of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) following an appeal from the employee.

AARRRGH

If they want to get rid of you so much, and their behaviour is bothering you, I recommend you start looking for a new job. You'll be so much happier working for someone else.

The_Conductor

The Revenue Commissioners take a very dim view of what are known as "phoenix companies". It used to be a very good way of escaping financial obligations (quite often to the tax man), but those loopholes have largely been closed. Its a good way of getting yourself disbarred under the Companies Act......

board om

I worked in a company about 12 years ago that did exactly that, and they got away with it.

It was a very large construction company and there was a major union strike going on. They couldnt fire the strikers becuase they were union members. and because the strikers were blocking the gates no materials could get delivered so none of the non-union members could get any work done either, which meant the company were basically paying them to do nothing for weeks. but the company couldnt fire the non-union members either because they would have had to pay a fortune in redundancies payments. anyways, this was going on for weeks and weeks so one day one of the bosses called us all into the canteen and told us the that as of 12pm that day the company was closing down and they were letting everyone go. then at 12:05pm they said they had just started a new company with a new name and they offered everyone jobs with the new company. well, everyone except the union memenrs. so basically by doing this they got rid of all the union members, finished the strike, and got everyone back to work without paying anyone a cent. I think we might have got £200 each or something like that for signing with the new company, i cant really remember. but it defintily worked for them anyway.

as i said though, that is 12 years ago so employment laws might have changed since, but there was no problems doing it back then.