ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION/RECOMMENDATION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00013591
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Anonymised Parties | Warehouse operative | Logistics company |
Complaint(s):
Act | Complaint/Dispute Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977 | CA-00017775-001 | 06/03/2018 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 04/07/2018
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Maire Mulcahy
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 - 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 transferred from the transferor, the respondent, at the end of January/ beginning of February 2017 under a Transfer of Undertakings into the employment of the transferee in the beginning of February 2017. He worked as a warehouse operative earning a monthly, gross salary of €1,650. He worked a 40-hour week. The transferee and not the respondent terminated his employment on 18 October 2017. He submitted his complaint to the WRC on 6/3/2018. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
The complainant maintains that a transfer of undertakings occurred and that his service with the respondent, the transferor, is reckonable for the purposes of meeting the service requirements set out in section 2 of the Act. He claims he was unfairly dismissed by the transferee. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
The respondent did not attend. |
Findings and Conclusions:
This complaint has already been addressed in a decision against the transferee. Kimber and O ’Doherty in an article entitled “Transfer of Undertakings – Perspectives from Litigation”, IELJ 2008, 5(2), 56-62 state “It is important to remember that by virtue of art.3(1) of Directive 2001/23/EC, as of the date of transfer, the transferor's rights and obligations are automatically transferred by operation of law to the transferee. Thus, post-transfer, the employee must seek their remedy against the transferee and the transferor escapes liability. The Directive itself permits Member States to make transferor and transferee jointly and severally liable. Irish implementing regulations, however, have not done this.” I do not find this complaint against this respondent to be well founded.
|
Decision:
Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 – 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the unfair dismissal claim consisting of a grant of redress in accordance with section 7 of the 1977 Act.
I do not find this complaint to be well founded. |
Dated: 3rd April 2019
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Maire Mulcahy
Key Words:
Complaint of unfair dismissal against the transferor. |