WRC orders Homestyle Meats to recognise Eileen Cox’s prior service

The Workplace Relations Commission found Eileen Cox’s complaint against Homestyle Meats Ltd well founded and ordered the company to confirm in writing that her prior service and employment conditions transferred to it without a break in service. The decision, by adjudication officer Janet Hughes, was dated 26 September 2023. Cox had worked at the Gallery Cafe before it closed in June 2022 and reopened under Homestyle Meats. The company argued that the change did not come within the transfer of undertakings rules. The WRC found that the cafe retained its identity, resources and customer base, and that Cox remained an employee when the transfer occurred because her six-week statutory notice period had not expired. The order required Homestyle Meats to confirm within 42 days that Cox’s prior service and other employment conditions transferred to the company on 13 July 2022.