Employers ‘not obeying redundancy principles’

EMPLOYERS across the country are cherry-picking employees for redundancy rather than obeying last-in, first-out principles, it has been claimed.

SIPTU, the union which represents more than 125,000 employees in the private sector, said it is coming across cases on an almost daily basis of people being let go “out of sequence”. Until now, there had been a tradition between trade unions and employer bodies under the social partnership ethos that the last-in, first-out principle would be applied but with the collapse of social partnership that appears to have been abandoned. “The ‘last-in, first-out’ principle is being set aside by an awful lot of employers,” said SIPTU national industrial organiser, Gerry McCormack.

“What they do is make people redundant but will only pay them statutory redundancy if they say they are taking a case to the tribunal for unfair selection and won’t pay them any ex-gratia. They will tell the staff ‘you can go off and make a claim for unfair selection at a tribunal if you wish, but in the meantime statutory is all you are going to get’.