ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION/RECOMMENDATION

Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00006456

Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	Cleaner	Cleaning Services Company

Complaint(s):

Act	Complaint/Dispute Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977	CA-00008556-001	03/12/2016

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 25/04/2017

Location of Hearing: Room 4.01 Lansdowne House

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 [and/or Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 - 2014 and/or Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 - 2015, and/or Section 9 of the Protection of Employees (Employers’ Insolvency) Acts, 1984 - 2012, and/or Part VII of the Pensions Acts 1990 - 2015 and/or Section 79 of the Employment Equality Acts, 1998 - 2015, and/or Section 25 of the Equal Status Act, 2000, and/or Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969] following the referral of the complaint(s)/dispute(s) to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint(s)/dispute(s) and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint(s)/dispute(s).

Background:

The Claimant is Claiming unfair dismissal

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

The Claimant has been employed by the Respondent since 2013. In July 2016 she took holidays and returned to her native country, Romania. While on holidays she became ill and could not return to working on 18 July. She contacted her supervisor to let her know. When she returned she called the Respondent to get the email address to send the medical certificates. Some days later she received her P45.

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

The Respondent related the events that led to the P45b being issued. They were led to believe that the Claimant was not returning to work from Romania. As she had not booked a return ticket when she left on holidays. They also claimed that no medical certificates were received and there was little contact between the Claimant and the Respondent.

Once the matter was clarified she was offered her job back and this offer still stands to-day.

Decision:

Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint(s)/dispute(s) in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.

[Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 – 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the unfair dismissal claim consisting of a grant of redress in accordance with section 7 of the 1977 Act.]

I have considered all the evidence presented by the parties. The Claimant did not make it clear to the Respondent of her intention to return to work once she had recovered nor did she indicate a lightly date at which she might return. An employer is entitled to be made aware of this. Furthermore, she did not engage directly with the Respondent on her return to this country but engaged a representative to deal with her ‘dismissal’.

Once the Respondent became aware of her intention to return to work they offered to recommence her employment. She did not accept this offer.

Therefore I accept that the issuing of her P45 came about due to lack of clarity of the situation mainly brought about by the Claimant. I do not accept a dismissal took place within the meaning of the 1977 Act.

I do not find the claim well founded and it fails.

Dated: 29h August 2017

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