ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION

Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00013759, ADJ-00015713

Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	A Bookkeeper	A Hotel

Representatives

Complaints:

Act	Complaint Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967	CA-00018432-001	10/04/2018
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 11 of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973	CA-00020237-001	04/07/2018

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 21/11/2018

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 and/or Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 - 2014 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 complaints.

Background:

The complainant referred complaints initially under the Redundancy Payments Act which was listed for hearing as ADJ 13759 and later under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act which was listed for hearing as ADJ 15713.

Both complaints were heard together and the decisions are below.

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

The complainant had been employed as the bookkeeper in the respondent hotel, from May 13th, 2010 to January 8th 2018; a total of seven years and two hundred and forty-two days.

In August 2017 ownership of the hotel transferred to the current respondent and the complainant and her colleagues were transferred under the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations.

The business continued to trade until January 2018.

At that stage the complainant and her co-workers were placed on lay-off, initially for a period of three months from January 8th. (This had been a normal seasonal closedown period in the past.)

On February 18th, 2018 this was extended by a further six months.

In May a meeting took place between the employees and the respondent at which the workforce was told that the hotel would not be re-opening but that the company had no funds to make redundancy payments.

The complainant now seeks a redundancy payment on the basis of her entitlements under the Redundancy Payments Act and a payment under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act.

She gave evidence that in 2017 her average working week was an average of twenty-five hours and she was paid €11.60 per hour.

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

The respondent did not attend the hearing. No explanation was provided for the failure to do so,

Findings and Conclusions:

On the basis of the facts presented in evidence at the hearing I find that the complainant was made redundant and is entitled to a redundancy payment.

The calculation of her entitlement to a payment is determined by Section 16 of Schedule III of the Redundancy Payments Acts which defines ’normal weekly remuneration’ and the basis on which this is to be calculated.


		(iii) The remuneration to be taken into account for the purposes of subparagraph (ii) shall be the total remuneration paid to the employee concerned for all the hours worked in the period of 26 weeks which ended 13 weeks before the date on which the employee was declared redundant, adjusted in respect of any variations in the rates of pay which became operative during the period of 13 weeks ending on the date on which the employee was declared redundant.

Sub section (vi) contains a similar provision for the calculation of hours.

She had worked a full, forty-hour week until February 2017 and thereafter her working week was in the range twenty to thirty hours.

I find that her average hours weekly hours in the reckonable period were twenty -five hours.

I find that the complainant is entitled to a redundancy payment and also to a notice payment, in each case based on her service from May 13th, 2010 to January 8th 2018, based on her weekly earnings of €290.00.

Decision:

Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaints in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.

Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 – 2012 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under that Act.

I uphold CA-00018432-001 and award the complainant a payment under the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967 based on her continuous service from May 13th, 2010 to January 8th, 2018 and her average weekly wage of €290.00.

I also uphold complaint CA-00020237-001 and award her four weeks’ pay in in respect of notice due in the amount of €1,160.00.

Dated: 21/01/19