TED1930

This is an appeal by Marius Roca (the Complainant) against an Adjudication Officer’s Decision ADJ-00009456 given under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 (the Act) in a claim that O’Leary International Unlimited Company (the Respondent) were in breach of the Act. The Adjudication Officer upheld the complaint and awarded compensation in respect of each breach. However, the Complainant is seeking that he be awarded the maximum compensation for each breach.

Complainant’s case

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent in 2011 as an International HGV Driver. It is the Complainant’s case that the Respondent unilaterally changed the Complainant’s pay from weekly to monthly and contrary to section 5 of the Act did not provided any written notification to the Complainant in respect of same. The Respondent also changed the Complainant’s pay structure and the rate for Public Holidays and Annual leave without providing written notification. The second breach relates to a breach of section 3 of the Act whereby the terms and conditions of employment document given to the Complainant a number of years after he commenced employment did not meet the requirements of section three of the Act.

It is the Complainant’s submission that these are two serious breaches of the Act and the compensation awarded should reflect the seriousness of the breaches.

Respondent’s case.

The Respondent is not disputing that there were breaches of the Act or the nature of the breaches being argued before the Court. It is their submission that the compensation awarded by the Adjudication Officer was the appropriate award as they had since rectified the breaches and had incurred significant expense in doing so.

Discussion

It is not disputed that there were two distinct breaches of the Act. In that the statement of terms and conditions that issued to the Complainant did not comply with the Act nor is it disputed that the Respondent failed to notify the Complainant of changes to his terms and conditions of employment. No submission was made to the Court in relation to the circumstances that led to these breaches.

Determination

The Court having carefully read the submissions and listened to the oral submissions on the day determines that compensation in the amount of €1,760 being four weeks wages should be paid in respect of the section 3 breach and compensation in the amount of €1,760 being four weeks wages should be paid in respect of the section 5 breach. The appeal is allowed. The Decision of the Adjudication Officer is varied accordingly.

The Court so determines

Signed on behalf of the Labour Court



Louise O'Donnell
TH______________________
17 December 2019Deputy Chairman



NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Determination should be addressed to Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.