Twitter has lodged an appeal against a ruling that it must pay out an Irish record unfair dismissal award of €550,131 to a former executive.
In the ruling last month at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), adjudicator, Michael MacNamee, found that Twitter International UC – now known as X – unfairly dismissed former employee Gary Rooney in December 2022.
The WRC heard that the social media giant decided the employee had resigned when he failed to tick a box requiring him to agree to new, unspecified pay and conditions within a one-day deadline in response to an email from the company’s new owner, Elon Musk, in November 2022.
In the “Fork in the Road” email, the billionaire told employees that to “build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hard-core. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
Mr Musk then required employees to click “yes” in a link at the bottom of the email. “Anyone has [sic] not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow will receive three months of severance,” the email added, before concluding: “Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”
On Tuesday Mr Rooney’s solicitor Barry Kenny, of Kenny Sullivan Solicitors in Bray, confirmed that an appeal of the WRC ruling and award has been lodged by Twitter with the Labour Court.
“I am confident that the WRC ruling will be upheld and in fact I would expect the Labour Court may decide to increase the amount awarded by the adjudicator in the WRC.”
Mr Kenny said: “I would expect a hearing date before Christmas.”
At the WRC, Twitter International UC fully contested Mr Rooney’s claim over five days of hearing, contending that he had resigned voluntarily. In his findings, Mr MacNamee found that Mr Rooney was dismissed from his role as director of “source to pay” because he did not click “yes” to Elon Musk’s “Fork in the Road” email and for that reason alone.
[ Twitter ordered to pay record €550,000 to senior executive in IrelandOpens in new window ]
After Mr Rooney opted not to click “yes” on the link, three days later, on November 19th, 2022, Mr Rooney received a further company email which stated that it is “to acknowledge your decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer”.
The email stated that Mr Rooney’s last working day was Thursday November 17th and that his access to Twitter systems was deactivated the same day. His employment was officially terminated on December 18th, 2022.
In evidence, Mr Rooney told the WRC that before the change of ownership he loved his job.
On receiving Mr Musk’s “Fork in the Road” email, Mr Rooney said his first reaction was disbelief and he was initially afraid even to open it for fear that it was spam or malware.
Mr Rooney secured a new role with an employer in the banking sector in September 2023 on a total remuneration of €129,897.
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