Frustrated former employees of Dowling's Cycles are looking to take legal action against their old boss because he did not give them the option of being paid severance packages when the company was sold last year.

"I just want what is due to me," said Roseann Smith, who worked for more than 16 years with the company, formerly based in St. George's, which was bought by Oleander Cycles in March.

The group of six employees have been wrangling with company owner H. Randolph Dowling for months, trying to get him to pay out thousands of dollars which they say is rightfully theirs. However, Mr. Dowling told The Royal Gazette that, when he sold the company, he made arrangements for his employees to be taken on by Oleander Cycles with at least the same rate of pay as they were at originally.

He referred further questions to his lawyer Paul King, who The Royal Gazette has not been able to contact.

And Oleander Cycles manager Jeffrey Gibbons explained he made arrangements with Mr. Dowling that the employees would have the opportunity to be employed with them "under same terms and conditions".

He added: "We didn't actually purchase the company or its liabilities, we purchased its assets."

The Employment Act 2000 states that employees who have completed at least one year of continuous employment shall be entitled to severance allowances of two weeks wages, for each completed year of employment up to the first ten years, and three weeks wages for each completed year thereafter.

The amount paid cannot be any more than 26 weeks of wages.

However, it adds: "Severance allowance is not payable where an employee unreasonably refuses to accept an offer of re-employment by the employer at the same place of work under no less favourable terms than he was employed immediately prior to the termination."

Joseph Cheeseman, who as a manager at Dowling's Cycles for 22 years, conceded that Oleander had offered him a job at the same rate of pay but he pointed out that he would have lost his seniority.

And Mrs. Smith, who believes she is owed around $15,000, said she refused to take up the job because that she would have had to start at the bottom again.

"I would have lost 17 years of seniority if I'd gone to work at Oleander," Mrs. Smith said. "I didn't even fill out an application."

An informed source told The Royal Gazette that it seemed like the employees have a case because, having lost their years of seniority when they started new jobs at Oleander, they would have lost their rights to substantial severance packages should that company be forced to make them redundant in the near future.

Mrs. Smith said four of the six former employees at Dowling's had refused to go over to Oleander when the company ceased to exist and had found work elsewhere.

She added: "I'm angry. And that's not only for me but for everyone. How can you have dedicated so many years of service to a company, then Mr. Dowling just decides to close the doors and that is it?

"He should have taken responsibility for us. I just want what is due to me. I'm struggling from pay cheque to pay cheque right now, trying to make ends meet."

Mr. Cheeseman said: "It's unfair that he didn't give us what we deserve. He didn't even give me a raise the whole time that I worked there."

He said Mr. Dowling did not tell employees that he was selling the company until a month before the sale actually took place.

He and Mrs. Smith explained that, after months of trying to get Mr. Dowling to pay up, they and four other employees were now talking to lawyers in a bid to take legal action against him.

"He didn't even tell us he was selling the company," Ms Smith said. "You don't just up and sell a business in the space of a month. Those workers worked there seven days a week and they got nothing for it."

Government Labour Relations Officer Glenn Fubler, who is handling the case, declined to comment when contacted.