EMPLOYMENT APPEALS TRIBUNAL
CLAIM OF: CASE NO.
Daria Bemowska UD170/2013
against
Marie McGovern
t/a N & M McGovern
under
UNFAIR DISMISSALS ACTS, 1977 TO 2007
I certify that the Tribunal
(Division of Tribunal)
Chairman: Ms M. Levey B.L.
Members: Mr J. Goulding
Ms M. Maher
heard this claim at Dublin on 7th May 2014
Representation:
Claimant : In person
Respondent : In person
The determination of the Tribunal was as follows:
The claimant told the Tribunal that she commenced employment with the respondent as a cleaner in June 2010. She was not issued with a contract of employment nor furnished with terms and conditions of her employment. According to the respondent she was employed on a work as required basis. Her hours, days, times and locations of work varied as the respondent obtained and then allocated work to her.
From January to July 2012 the claimant was absent from work as she was on maternity leave. Two weeks prior to the expiry of that leave she contacted the respondent informing her she was soon available to recommence duties. The respondent did not reply but told the Tribunal that at the time there was no suitable work for the claimant. That message however was not conveyed to the claimant.
As the claimant was not then in receipt of an income she visited her local social welfare office and there was asked to submit her P45. After several attempts to acquire that document the respondent finally issued it top her. That P45 mistakenly gave a date in August 2011 as her date of leaving employment.
In maintaining she did not dismiss the claimant the respondent accepted the claimant’s version of events. However, the respondent presumed the claimant did not want her job as she regularly sought her P45 following the expiry of her maternity leave.
Determination
There was a clear lack of communication between the parties in this case. The employer had an employee who informed her of her return to work and her willingness to resume her duties. The respondent effectively ignored this fact. That situation was compounded when the respondent wrongly assumed that the claimant wanted to cease her employment when the issue of her P45 was eventually addressed. In turn the claimant needed that document for social welfare and payment purposes as the respondent failed to contact her in relation to her employment.
In also accepting the claimant’s version of events the Tribunal finds that she was constructively dismissed from her employment in the autumn of 2012. Notwithstanding the fact of a lack of a contract and wage slips the respondent frustrated the employment relationship to such an extent and the claimant had no other reasonable option but to vacate her position with the respondent.
The claim under the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 to 2007 succeeds and the claimant is awarded €8000.00 as compensation under those Acts.
Sealed with the Seal of the
Employment Appeals Tribunal
This ________________________
(Sgd.) ________________________
(CHAIRMAN)