Claimant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Development manager

Information service provider

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00018374-001

09/04/2018

The Claimant commenced working for the Respondent in 2000. The Respondent is a company which is in voluntary liquidation. It transferred its assets to another company in April 2018 under a nationwide restructuring of the service it provided. The Claimant transferred to this company also.

The Claimant’s referral is in relation to unfair treatment by several of the board members (including the Chairperson) of the Respondent.  

The Claimant used the internal grievance procedure to address her concerns. She lodged a grievance in January 2018 against her Chairperson.  

The Claimant believed that the grievance procedure was ignored and deliberately delayed because of the impending transfer of undertakings.

In March 2018 she received a letter advising her that an independent investigator was to be appointed.  

The investigator was never appointed and her grievance was never progressed.

This affected her health.

There was no attendance from the Respondent.

The transferee pursuant to the transfer of undertakings attended the hearing. It was not involved in the events that took place leading up to the transfer which took place in April 2018. It was not joined in the proceedings.

As the Claimant has lodged her dispute with the WRC prior to the transfer of undertakings, it left the dispute to be adjudicated by the WRC.

My remit is in relation to assessing the procedures adopted in this case. It is to establish if the procedures used by the Respondent conform to generally accepted standards of fairness and objectivity as would normally be used in a case such as this. Bord Gais Eireann -v- A Worker AD1377.

The Claimant provided substantial written submissions in relation to the events which took place between January and April 2018.

I have reviewed the Respondent’s grievance procedure. The Chairperson is the development manager’s line manager. Under the grievance procedure, the two board members were to be nominated to hear the grievance. Obviously, this would not have been appropriate and an external investigator was to be appointed.

This never took place.

A delay of up to twelve weeks in appointing an external investigator is not acceptable. I appreciate that the Respondent was in a period of transferring its staff and assets to a different company, however when the investigation was being carried out externally, there is no credible basis to explain the delay.

The parties to which the Claimant had a grievance are no longer involved in her employment.

She has started a new phase of her career with a new employer.

I accept that the Respondent did not investigate the complaint in accordance with fair procedures. The legal maxim “Justice delayed is justice denied” applies.  

I recommend that the Claimant agree to close her grievance complaint as correspondence from the Respondent on the WRC file indicates that the parties involved on its board of management do not intend to engage with the process.

As the Claimant did not suffer from any loss of earnings during the period in question, I recommend a sum of €300.00 be paid to the Claimant. This compensation will be a contribution to the medical expenses the Claimant incurred during this upsetting time for her.