Social media platform X’s Irish subsidiary has filed an appeal against the record €550,000 award it was ordered to pay an Irish executive who was dismissed after tech billionaire Elon Musk took over the firm formerly known as Twitter and told staff to either sign up to work “long hours at high intensity” or have it taken that they had resigned.
Gary Rooney won the sum on foot of an Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 claim against Twitter International Unlimited Company after he lost his job as a senior executive – worth over €320,000 without including a €40,000 performance bonus – within weeks of Mr Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform in October 2022.
Mr Rooney had worked for over nine years with Twitter before his employment as director of “source to pay” was terminated on December 18th that year. Mr Rooney said the company had refused to engage with him or his solicitor.
His solicitor confirmed today that last August’s decision, the largest given to an employee under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), has been appealed to the Labour Court by the employer.
Reference rents not the solution to the challenges in Ireland’s rental sector
I’ve enjoyed the benefits of sabbatical leave. It’s deeply misunderstood by employers
‘I have a pension plan, but it requires me not to retire for quite a while’
I want to sell my late wife’s Vodafone shares, but I’m at a loss finding the original value
Mr Rooney’s lawyers previously attempted to have Elon Musk summoned personally to testify before the Workplace Relations Commission on a November 2022 email that led to the dismissal.
The mail presented staff at the tech firm with the choice of signing up to be part of an “extremely hard-core” work culture under Mr Musk’s leadership “working long hours at high intensity” or take three months’ severance pay.
The WRC decided the case without summonsing Mr Musk – with adjudicator Michael MacNamee deciding that Mr Rooney could not be faulted for refusing to click yes in the circumstances.
The company’s senior director of human resources, Lauren Wegman, told said all 270 staff left in Ireland after redundancies were announced got the email. Of those, 235 clicked “yes”, she said. Of the remaining 35, including Mr Rooney, Ms Wegman said: “We accepted their resignations.”
The tribunal heard Mr Rooney took a pay cut from nearly €27,000 a month at Twitter to just over €10,800 a month when he took up a new senior role in banking in July 2023. His legal team had argued for an award at the maximum jurisdiction of the WRC in the circumstances and sought two years’ salary, €647,120.
Mr MacNamee awarded the complainant a little over €350,000 for his actual losses while out of work and in the new job, and a further €200,000 for his estimated future losses. The total award was €550,131.
Mr Rooney’s solicitor, Barry Kenny of Kenny Sullivan, said today: “We feel that in them opening up an appeal, the Labour Court is also at liberty to increase the award, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Mason Hayes and Curran, the Dublin law firm which acted for Twitter International Unlimited Company before the WRC, declined to comment when contacted earlier.
The appeal is listed for mention and case progression before the Labour Court on March 7th, Friday week.
