Complainant: Gary Rooney Respondent: Twitter International Unlimited Company

What happened? 

Twitter was ordered to pay €550,000 compensation to a former senior executive in its Irish-based operations in what is a record award by the WRC in an unfair dismissal case. Twitter contended that the employee had resigned following his failure to click yes on a link requiring him to agree to new unspecified pay and conditions within a one-day deadline. The link was contained in an email (referred to as the “Fork in the Road” email) sent from the company’s new owner Elon Musk which stated: “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing a grade.[….] If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below. Anyone has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make twitter successful. Elon.”

A further email was sent the following morning attaching an “FAQ” document. It was stated within the document that “If you do not confirm that you wish to stay at Twitter, you are resigning” and that there would be no entitlement to statutory redundancy or other termination payments, unless otherwise required by local law.

What did the WRC decide?

In the 73-page ruling, the Adjudication Officer (AO) stated that the decision not to click “yes”, was not capable of constituting an act of resignation. The AO also noted that Mr. Rooney was available for and tried to access work but was prevented from doing so by the Respondent. The AO further noted that the Complainant did not resign and the “purported acceptance of what was wrongly characterised as his resignation, in fact and in law constituted an unfair dismissal." The AO also stated that Mr. Musk’s email seemed to be an attempt to secure agreement to an alteration to the terms and conditions of employment or to elicit volunteers for redundancy. The WRC ultimately held that the dismissal was unfair due to the absence of any substantial grounds to justify termination of Mr. Rooney’s employment. The AO noted that where overall losses exceed 2 years remuneration then the compensation that should be awarded for this full amount capped at 104 weeks remuneration. A performance bonus formed part of the Complainant’s remuneration package with Twitter however, the AO held that the performance bonus was not earned and was not properly payable for 2022. As such, the AO found that the performance bonus was not a guaranteed contractual entitlement for the year 2022 and it did not form part of the total compensation package for the purpose of assessing losses attributable to the dismissal. The figure representing same was subtracted from the final figures. Ordering Twitter to pay Mr Rooney total compensation of €550,131 for the unfair dismissal, the AO said the amount was calculated on a basis that provided €200,000 for prospective future loss of earnings.

Key Takeaways

• There is no substitute for following proper process in terminating employment, whether it be by reason of redundancy or otherwise.
• Any termination of an Irish employee must comply with Irish law and there is no “one size fits all” for a multinational employer.  If that is attempted, the WRC will have no hesitation in making the maximum award.