ADJ-00016066

Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Worker

An Electrical Engineering Company

Representatives

Niall Phillips SIPTU

Paula O’Hanlon, IBEC

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-00020863-001

30/07/2018

The Complainant is seeking access to overtime and contends that the Respondents failure to allow her to gain access to overtime as other workers get is unfair. She further contends that the manner in which the Respondent dealt with her grievance compounded problems by changing explanation which changed as the grievance progressed.

The Complainant is a general operative employed by the Respondent since 1993

She works 39 hours per week

In January 2018 she raised a grievance with the Respondent under their grievance procedure regarding the distribution of overtime in the small/medium/high voltage winding area.

She met with management on 25 January 2018 and the response by management was by way of a report, furnished on the Complainant on 30 January 2018. This explained that overtime was not given other than on a case by case basis and is allocated to those employees who meet their targets on any given day. The report acknowledged that the Complainant had referred to bullying in her grievance and management invited her to use the internal bullying and harassment policy, should she wish to do so.

The Complainant appealed this and at the appeal she looked for evidence that her output was under par, secondly, she had never, not until she had raised this grievance, ever been told that her output was under par. She confirmed that she had not called anyone in management bullies and this was an aggressive thing for management to suggest. She believed that this was no way to treat an employee with the loyalty and the length of service that she had.

The allocation of over time is a matter for the Respondent and depends on the production requirement of the business. There is no entitlement to over time.

The HR records show that in terms of overtime worked that month (January 2018) only 3 other employees worked greater amount of overtime than the Complainant and 14 other employees received less overtime.

As the complainant and one other co-worker work on one particular machine, the over time, if it is required, which is rarely, this will either go to the Complainant or that other employee. This in accordance with the Standard Procedure regarding overtime is determined by the worker’s productivity. It cannot be determined by anything else as the production demands of the company must come first.

The matter raised at the Adjudication hearing deal with how the grievance procedure was flawed however the complaint is confined to the failure to uphold her grievance – not what happened during the grievance hearing process.

The Complainant has been employed by the Respondent since 1993. She has not had any problems or disciplinary issues over a very long period of service working as a general operative.

The Complainant was upset that she was being denied overtime when she felt that others were not. She raise her grievance under the Company Grievance Procedure as was her right.

It is unfortunate that management did not ascertain the facts which they raised at the Adjudication hearing, in the initial grievance report findings. If it was available at the Adjudication hearing, it could have been ascertained before then. This comes down to respecting the employee’s right to raise a grievance with management and for that to be respected and properly investigated.

I accept that the granting of over time can not be a right in that where the requirement for over time is limited it is important that there is a transparent way in order for a worker to know how they can achieve overtime. It is not fair for management to raise what could only have been understood as underperformance by he Complainant in a response to a legitimately raised grievance.

Similarly, if it is the case that she in fact was fourth in terms of getting overtime, ahead of 14 others who did not, there is no valid explanation as to why this wasn’t put to her in the grievance report, or at the appeal.

Instead there seems to have been a defensiveness and an inconsistency of reasoning on the part of management, which was unnecessary and unfortunate.

I am bound by the internal agreed procedures regarding overtime and therefore I cannot make a finding that the Complainant is entitled to over time and I accept that this must be determined by production demands above anything else however I find that the manner in which this grievance was dealt with was not as respectful as it should have been and that the reasoning given by management in the grievance report, in the appeal decision and at the Adjudication hearing have changed at each stage.

I note as a matter of fact that the Complainant did not charge any person with bullying but rather she described her response to the fact that she was not allowed overtime, was not given reasons for this and when she was given reasons she received criticisms of her work meant that she felt disrespected and that she felt bullied. And in this respect her long service and loyalty to her employer seemed not to matter to the team that dealt with her grievance

I find this complaint to be well founded and I award the Complainant €250.00