Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Cleaner

A Hospital

Representatives

None

IBEC

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00010614-001

4 April 2017

The complainant is a hospital cleaner and the respondent, a tertiary hospital. The complainant asserts that she has not been paid for all the hours she worked. At the first day of adjudication, the respondent accepted that monies were owed to her and asked for an adjournment to allow this to be investigated and rectified. The complaint was scheduled for a second day on the 13th October 2017.

The complainant commenced working for the respondent on the 8th December 2008 and remains an employee. She outlined that she is regularly not paid for all the hours she works. She said that while managers say they will correct the issue, this does not happen. In her complaint form, she stated that she is owed €2,500. This includes unpaid public holidays.

At the outset of the second day of adjudication, the complainant said that she was still owed for night duty work. She did not have confidence in the pay roll department and she had raised these issues with the respondent. She stated that she was owed money since the start of her employment in 2008. She worked the October 2016, New Year’s Day and St Patrick’s Day 2017 public holidays. She raised the issue of being paid overtime when she worked additional hours on a public holiday.

In submissions, the respondent outlined that this complaint could only deal with matters within a six-month limitation period, i.e. between October 2016 and April 2017. The respondent acknowledged that it had not paid the complainant for 83.5 hours and this was paid to her. The complainant also raised the issue of public holiday pay and the respondent established that it owed her for a further 34.27 hours.

The respondent said that it was looking at bringing in a time and attendance IT system. The issues in this case arose because of data entry errors. The complainant was paid for public holidays in line with other health service employees. It would shortly pay the complainant the €668.30 owed for 2017 public holidays.

The complainant is a hospital cleaner. She receives “basic pay” as well as additional payments for “travel allowance”, “Sunday hours”, a “Saturday allowance”, “unsocial hours” and “night duty”. She could also be paid for “extra hours” and “overtime.” These are entries on the multiple pay slips submitted by the complainant, covering the years 2014 to 2017. The evidence suggests that the gathering of accurate pay roll information presented a challenge to the respondent, given its scale and complexity. The respondent referred to plans to introduce a time and attendance system. It was obviously a source of frustration to the complainant to have to chase pay that she is owed. At the end of the second occasion of adjudication, there was no dispute and there was clarity as to what was owed. This was €668.30.

Subsections 6 and 8 of Section 41 of the Act of 2015 state:

“(6) Subject to subsection (8), an adjudication officer shall not entertain a complaint referred to him or her under this section if it has been presented to the Director General after the expiration of the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.

…

(8) An adjudication officer may entertain a complaint or dispute to which this section applies presented or referred to the Director General after the expiration of the period referred to in subsection (6) or (7) (but not later than 6 months after such expiration), as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.”

I find that the scope of this complaint is the six-month limitation period permissible in section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act. While I note the complainant’s frustration, there is no reasonable cause to extend time.

The respondent engaged in a proactive manner in between the two dates of adjudication. As of the second date of adjudication, there was an amount of €668.30 owing to the complainant. I find that she is entitled to redress for this amount.

CA-00010614-001

I find that the complaint made pursuant the Payment of Wages Act is well founded and the respondent shall pay to the complainant redress of €668.30.

Payment of Wages Act