ADJ-00014818

Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Caretaker

A Holiday Booking Company

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Regulation 18 of the European Communities (Road Transport)(Organisation of Working Time of Persons Performing Mobile Road Transport Activities) Regulations 2012 - S.I. No. 36/2012

CA-00019336-001

22/05/2018

The complainant claims that he did not receive a contract of employment, pay slips nor were appropriate tax deductions made during his employment.

The complainant was offered free accommodation by Mr A who looked after the maintenance of holiday accommodation. This offer of free accommodation was dependent on the complainant doing housekeeping and other caretaking duties.

He initially started working on 9th January 2017 but left around September 2017 to return home. He later returned in November 2017 and sought work from Mr A and was engaged by him.

He was upset in March 2018 when he asked for terms and conditions of employment and was given a piece of paper which he detailed was not sufficient to be considered a contract of employment.

With regards to a preliminary issue raised by the respondent that he was not the correctly named respondent (Company X), the complainant detailed that he understood that Company X had engaged his services to do housekeeping and caretaking duties for holiday accommodation and provided an email and the contract which appeared to identify other companies as the employer.

The respondent outlined that there were a number of preliminary issues.

He detailed that there were two issues, one was that while the spelling of the name of the respondent detailed on the complainant form was ‘slightly’ incorrect, he would allow that to be amended. However, he outlined that he was a director of a booking company (company X) a company which visitors utilise to book holiday accommodation with a separate company (herein referred to as Company Y). It was further submitted that as Company X and Company Y are very separate organisations, there is no relationship between the two. It was, therefore, denied that Company X had ever employed the complainant and therefore, they were not the correctly named respondent, and it was detailed that Company X had never employed the complainant.

It was furthermore outlined that a sub-contractor Mr A had been engaged, whose role was to maintain the holiday accommodation. A copy of invoices received from Mr A were provided after the hearing and copied to the complainant. 

An email from Mr A was provided detailing how Mr A engaged the services of the Complainant to carry out work in return for accommodation but that the complainant resigned and damaged the accommodation before he departed.

I note that the complainant believed he was employed by the respondent Company X, however, no evidence was provided to suggest that the named respondent was his employer and the evidence provided suggested, in fact, that if the complainant was indeed an employee, he may have been an employee of Company Y or an employee of Mr A.

During the hearing the complainant accepted that he may have been confused by who was his actual employer and did not dispute the details contained in the email from Mr A which were provided at the hearing.

It is also noted that no evidence was provided by the complainant that he was a Person Performing Mobile Road Transport Activities under Regulations 2012 - S.I. No. 36/2012.

With regards to the issue regarding the correct named respondent, I have no option but to find that the Respondent herein has no liability to the Complainant under the Acts.

I find that the respondent named in this case is not the correct respondent and the complaints are, therefore, dismissed.