Redundancy - should I get end of year bonus?

My company is due to hand out redundancy notices today (Friday 3rd November). I may be chosen for redundancy. I have 17 years of service so am due 8 weeks notice. I am on holidays today (and not at home so not contactable) so if I am to be given notice the earliest I can be given it is Monday 6th November. 8 weeks from 6th November brings my end date to Monday 1st January. The company may ask to pay in lieu of working the 8 weeks. The company pays a (big) bonus to employees on the books on 31st December.

If I am made redundant on Monday, should I be paid the bonus ?
Can they backdate the date to today ? Any extra advice on the subject ?

Is the bonus discretionary or included in your employment contract ?

Has this issue been raised during discussions about the redundancy?

If you were to recieve a bonus what is it based on ? - perfomance review, sales target, years service ?

Ask them.

The bonus is not part of a contract, it is a widely advertised company-wide incentive bonus based on the performance of the company over the year.

The redundancy announcements were expected in October so it was not expected that anyone would be crossing the year boundary so I think that they expected that this scenario may not arise. I hear that the notices expected today were postponed again so now there will be more than just me affected.

Anyone who has more than 15 years service will now have an 8 week notice period that extends into 2007.

If made redundant, then I will ask but would like to know if I have any entitlement to go huntng the bonus.

In my opinion, if the company has been paying the bonus to all eligible staff for a number of years, you may have a case based on "custom and practice". In other words, what happens in practice, regardless of whether it's in the contract, may be deemed to be an entitlement.

You'd need to be sure though that there isn't a document in existence, available to staff, which sets out the circumstances in which the bonus is, or isn't paid.

Perhaps wait to see what happens before deciding whether to take more formal action?

It would also strike me in this case that if the company is making redundancies, then perhaps it is not doing too well. If the bonus is based on the performance of the company, then the bonus might not be too large this year if there is one at all...

I it is any consolation if you don't get the bonus, you are entitled to a minimum of 35 weeks pay upon redundancy as your are working there 17 years. Under redundancy law you are entitled to a minimum of 2 weeks pay for each year worked plus an additional week.

From Dept. Enterprise Trade & Employment website:

Under the Redundancy Payments Act, 2003, an eligible employee who is declared redundant on or after 25th May, 2003 is entitled to two weeks statutory redundancy payment for every year of service between 16 and 66. A bonus week is added to this. All of this is based on gross pay subject to the "ceiling" of €600 (from 1st January, 2005 - €507.90 prior to that). This ceiling is adjusted every few years.

I also think that some if not all would be tax-free

Yep perhaps I am getting greedy but it would be good to get what we are entitled to.

They still haven't announced the people. So if it does not get done this week then the 10 year people (entitled to 6 weeks notice) will be in the same position as the 15 year people are currently. 20 November + 6 weeks = 1st January.

To answer previous questions - the bonus is payable to "active" employees (of 1st January).

There is a rumour that the long serving people have contracts which are under a 1973 Unfair Dismissals Act and that this says that they can choose to work out their notice. Does anyone know if this is true ?
This would make them "active" on 1st January 2007.

There will be a bonus - perhaps not as big as previous years but worth at least a couple of weeks wages.

Well DoctorD is not being made redundant but others over 15 years are. So any further advice for them ?