ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION

 Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00009619

Parties:

 Complainant  Anonymised Parties    Respondent

A Bar Worker                                              A Bar  

Representatives    

Complaint:

ActComplaint/Dispute        Reference No.         Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 16 of the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act, 2001 CA-00012613-001 18/07/2017  

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 14/12/2017 Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 following the referral of the complaint to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint  

Background:

The complainant had been employed by the respondent from May 18th 2017 to July 14th 2017 on approximately €11 per hour.

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

There had been issues arising regarding whether till receipts were being issued in all cases by the respondent employees and these pre-dated the complainant’s employment. On his return from annual leave, he was told by his manager that he would have a designated till, to which the complainant took exception. In due course the till had a sheet of paper placed on it designating it as his till. He saw this as reflecting adversely on his honesty. He says that this was done because he was a part time member of staff.  

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

The respondent said that this was a normal part of managing and overseeing its operations. The complainant was a very new member of staff and it was legitimate to monitor him. There was no change to his conditions of employment.  

Findings and Conclusions:

The Protection of Workers (Part-time work) Act 2001 (The Act) contains the following at section 9 (1); Subject to subsection (2) and (4) and section 11 (2), a part-time employee shall not, in respect of his or her conditions of employment, be treated in a less favourable manner than a comparable full-time employee. In this case the complainant considered that he had been unfairly selected for attention arising from the concern about the issue of till receipts. However, the purpose of the legislation is to eliminate less favourable treatment of workers in respect of their ‘conditions of employment’. The incident complained of cannot be brought within that scope. No aspect of his conditions of employment was adversely affected. There were other part time workers in the business who were not affected either. This was a simple matter which should have been processed as a grievance at the level of the workplace. The complainant had been given a copy of, and had signed the company procedures, including the grievance procedure when he started work with the respondent. In passing it might be helpful to say that the respondent could have made a better job of explaining its actions to the complainant and by doing so could have addressed his sense of grievance, avoided the current proceedings and saved itself the trouble of defending them. Having said that, at its worst, this was a very minor workplace grievance and it is misconceived as a complaint under the Act.    

Decision:

Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.   For the reasons set out above I do not uphold complaint CA-00012613-001 and it is dismissed.  

Dated:   23rd January 2018  Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady

Key Words: Part time work.