Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Bar Supervisor

A Sports Bar Company

Representatives

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00018875-002

02/05/2018

The complainant was employed as a Bar Supervisor with the respondent. He claims that on 9 April 2018 he met with his bosses and owners of the Bar who told him that the Bar will close with immediate effect. The complainant is seeking his entitlements under the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973.

The respondent failed to engage.

The complainant worked as a Bar Supervisor with the respondent for over one year. He was due to work on the evening of 9 April 2018, but had heard informally that the Bar was going to close down. He went in early at 10am in the morning to check out if there was any truth in the rumours. He was met with the Owners who confirmed that things were not working out as expected and the Bar was closing with immediate effect. The two owners confirmed that all the staff would be looked after, they would get what was owed to them and be set up in new jobs. The complainant said that he got €518 lodged into his account a few days later. He said that he never got any communication from the owners or a payslip to explain the breakdown of the amount paid. He said that he was owed a number of weeks wages for the likes of holiday pay, etc. He said that he has tried to deal with this situation himself but cannot get the respondent to engage and that is why he referred his case to the Workplace Relations Commission. The complainant is seeking his entitlements under the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act, 1973.

The respondent did not attend the adjudication hearing nor did it send in a submission.

The Relevant Law

Section 4 of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973 provides that,

4. Minimum period of notice

(1) An employer shall, in order to terminate the contract of employment of an employee who has been in his continuous service for a period of thirteen weeks or more, give to that employee a minimum period of notice calculated in accordance with the provisions of subsection (2) of this section.

(2) The minimum notice to be given by an employer to terminate the contract of employment of his employee shall be—

(a) if the employee has been in the continuous service of his employer for less than two years, one week,

[…]

Conclusions

Based on the uncontroverted evidence of the complainant at the hearing, I find that the complainant had approximately one years’ service with the respondent at the time he was let go on 9 April 2018. I am satisfied that the complainant’s claim under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act is well founded and he was denied his statutory notice period of one week.

Other Matters

On the day of the hearing the complainant referred to other possible breaches to employment legislation, including, in particular, an outstanding redundancy payment, outstanding holiday pay owed and no additional pay for bank holidays worked.

I note that the claim to redundancy was received in the Workplace Relations Commission, however as the complainant was employed less than the “relevant period” of 104 weeks continuous employment, which is a requirement under Section 7(1)(a) and 7(5), this claim is not valid.

I am satisfied that the other claims introduced - outstanding holiday pay owed, no additional pay for bank holidays worked – are not correctly before me for consideration. It is the complainant’s responsibility to ensure that all complaints are correctly submitted to the Workplace Relations Commission under the relevant pieces of legislation within the correct time limits.

I have found that the complaint is well founded and I order the respondent to pay €480.77 to the complainant as compensation amounting to one weeks’ pay.

Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act - compensation for the breach of the Act