Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967

CA-00015049-001

15/10/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00015049-002

15/10/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 11 of the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973

CA-00015049-003

15/10/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00015049-004

15/10/2017

The complainant began his employment with the respondent on January 6th, 2014 and it terminated on November 4th 2016.

The complaints were received on October 15th 2017 and a preliminary issue arises as to whether certain of them have been made within the time limits. A complaint under the Redundancy Payments Acts may be made within twelve months of the alleged breach of the Act; others are required to be made in six months (with the possibility of extensions in each case for ‘reasonable cause’).

The complainant says that on November 4th, 2016 he was called into the respondent’s office and told that there would be no work for him the following week and for the foreseeable future. He was told that it was a ’layoff’ situation and would be reviewed.

The complainant voiced his strong objection to this but to no avail.

He was not served with Form RP 9.

The respondent refused to supply him with a reference or a P45 with the result that he had great difficulty getting new employment. He eventually did on August 21st, 2017. (A reference was eventually given on November 21st, 2016).

He had not been given a statutory statement of his Terms of Employment and did not get paid notice.

The respondent says that the complaints have been submitted outside the permitted time limits and relied on the decision of the Labour Court in the case of Cementation Skanska, DWT 0342.

That case and others are authority for the proposition that any application for an extension of time limits must both provide a reasonable explanation for, and excuse the failure to submit the case in time.

The complainant has failed to do so and his complaints must fall.

Section 12 of the Redundancy Payments Act requires an employee who has been placed on lay off or short-time working to give notice to his employer of his intention to claim a redundancy payment arising from that lay-off or short-time working.

Subsection (1) states explicitly that;

‘an employee shall not be entitled to a redundancy payment’ unless he does so.’

The complainant did not do so in this case and has therefore lost his entitlement to a payment under the Act.

I find that the complaints, except that made under the Redundancy Payments Acts, have not been made within the six months’ time limit required and no acceptable explanation was provided for the failure to do so.

Accordingly, those fail as they were not submitted within the statutory time limits.

It is also clear from the correspondence which passed between the parties at the time that the complainant saw his position as one of redundancy.

The time limit for making a complaint under that Act provides a complainant with a further six months within which to do so, i.e. a total of twelve months and the complainant has therefore made his complaint in time.

However, I must take account of Section 12 referred to above in the submission of the respondent.

It states, at section 12(1)

An employee shall not be entitled to redundancy payment by reason of having been laid off or kept on short-time unless he gives to his employer notice (in this Part referred to as a notice of intention to claim) in writing of his intention to claim redundancy payment in respect of lay-off or short-time.

The complainant did not do so and has therefore not met the statutory requirements to qualify for a payment.

I do not uphold complaint CA-00015049-001 for the reasons set out above

Complaints CA-00015049-002, 003, and 004 were not made within the prescribed time limits and they are not upheld.

Time Limits.