Whether the winning of a tender amounts to a transfer of undertaking Suzen v Zehnacker Grebaudereinigung GmbH Krakenkausservice [1997] IRLR 255 is authority that the mere loss of a service contract from one contractor to another is not automatically a transfer of undertaking. In that case, a school had contracted out cleaning operations to cleaning […]
Employment Law Ireland
Social insurance fund and informal insolvency
The Protection of Employees (Employer Insolvency) Act 1984 provides for a range of payments to employees of insolvent companies from the Insolvency Fund. See government sites for information here and here. The limitation of the legislation was that you generally needed to show the employer went into liquidation or receivership to claim. However, most insolvent […]
Objective Grounds Justifying the Renewal of Fixed Term Contract
Section 9 of the Protection of Employees (Fixed Term Workers Act) 2003 (hereinafter FTWA) provides inter alia that an employer cannot have two or more fixed term contracts where the aggregate duration is greater than four years unless there are objective grounds for the renewal. Otherwise it will be read as a contract of indefinite […]
When an employee joins the competition
Where an employee leaves to compete against the employer there are four possible causes of action the employer could seek to rely upon. Firstly, the employer might point to a restrictive covenant and seek to enforce that. Secondly, the employer might seek to rely on a confidentiality clause in the contract of employment. Thirdly, the […]
The Employment Injunction
Injunctions to restrain a dismissal When an employee is dismissed generally the employee will sue for unfair dismissal in the EAT. However, there are circumstances where an employee will attempt to injunct the dismissal in the High Court. Beginning with Fennelly v. Assicurazoni Generali SPA (Unreported Ex tempore, (Costello P.) 13th August, 1997 the High […]
Bullying and harassment at work
A synopsis of more recent stress at work and bullying cases Bullying is defined in the Industrial Relations Act Code of Practice as “Workplace Bullying is repeated inappropriate behavior, direct or indirect, whether verbal, physical or otherwise, conducted by one or more persons against another or others, at the place of work and/or in the […]
