A former senior figure at Twitter, now known as X, has had the compensation pay from his unfair dismissal case in Ireland cut to less than half of the original award.
Gary Rooney was among the large group of staff told by email in October 2022 that their roles had been terminated, shortly after Elon Musk took control of the organisation. Before the layoffs, Musk had informed employees that they were expected to be “extremely hardcore” and to work “long hours at high intensity” if they wished to stay on. Staff were asked to click ‘yes’ to confirm their acceptance of those terms.
Rooney declined to click ‘yes’. An Irish tribunal later found that this did not amount to a resignation or a breach of contract, and it granted him €550,000 (£479,102) in compensation, the highest unfair dismissal award ever issued by the Workplace Relations Commission. X appealed the ruling.
Part of the original sum related to restricted share units (RSUs), a share‑linked bonus scheme. X argued that these payments should not be included because the scheme required Rooney to remain employed in order to receive them. His solicitor countered that this conflicted with section 13 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, which renders void any contractual terms that attempt to limit the act’s protections.
A Dublin court has now decided that the RSU conditions did not prevent Rooney from bringing his case, but that the scheduled RSU payments should not be counted when calculating his losses.
The court accepted that Rooney had not contributed to his dismissal and had taken reasonable steps to reduce his financial losses, securing new employment the following September.
He has now been awarded €113,419 (£98,801) for the period he was unemployed, €47,988 (£41,804) for losses during the early months in his new role, €8,010 (£6,977) for a later period after a pay rise, and €32,041 (£27,912) for future losses, a total of €201,458 (£175,476).
Rooney’s claim is one of many brought against the organisation following the mass‑redundancy email in 2022. Alongside a group action settled last year, hundreds of individual arbitration cases remain active concerning unpaid severance.
This article is based on a piece written for Personnel Today
