Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Mary  Browne

Mr. Bhupendra Choudhary Bornodal Limited

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967

CA-00059700-001

31/10/2023

The complainant makes a complaint under the Redundancy Payments Ac t.

The complainant was employed by BornodallimitedandKilcullenstoreslimited which took over the business in December 2021.The owner was the respondent,BhupendraChoudhary.

The complainant gave her evidence on affirmation.

She stated that she was told by the respondent on September 7th, 2023, that her employment was ending, and the new owner told her that he was taking on the existing staff but not treating their previous service as continuous. She says her contract and years of services were broken.

On being asked to clarify when her employment ended, she confirmed that it had not ended and the reason she was seeking redundancy was in respect of the previous service which she says has been lost.

She remains in employment.

RP Sweets and Treats limited took over the business on September 17th, 2023, and stated that they would not recognise her previous service and that we were starting a new contract from then.

Therefore,  she says her redundancyandyearsofservicesiswith the respondent.

The respondent gave evidence on affirmation.

He confirmed that he initially took over the business in December 2021 and as the new owner he honoured his obligations under the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations to take over all staff and service with the previous owner.

His original entity, BornodalLimitedceasedtradingemploymentonDecember 6th,  2021and began trading as a new entity on December 6th, 2022, in which he remained as owner but with a new business partner. All employees were told about the change.

A new owner, unrelated to the respondent took over on 7th September 2023, He was told about the service of staff and that he would need to take over the lease as it is. Also, all employees are currently working in the shop and no one has been let go.

The respondent denies that he ever had a conversation as alleged with the complainant on September 7th, 2023, telling her that her employment was being terminated. Any dispute about service is between the new employer and the complainant and has nothing to do with him.  All staff, including the complainant areonthenewemployer'spayroll.

It is the new employer’s job to make sure all employees have contracts and the hours they were working and any dispute arising is with the current employer which has been paying their wages since 9th September 2023.

As can be seen above this is a complaint under the Redundancy Payments Act.

 As can also be seen from the complainant’s sworn testimony there has been no redundancy; she continues in uninterrupted employment and so the complaint is entirely vexatious.

The complainant may have been told that her service would not transfer from the respondent to the new owner who took over in September 2023. If she was, then this is erroneous in law, and that is an entirely different matter.

How she managed to construe this into a redundancy complaint on the basis of any common, non-legal understanding of what constitutes a redundancy is a mystery.

The complaint is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above Complaint CA-00059700-001 is not well founded.

Redundancy.