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-00018472-001

12/04/2018

The Worker was employed as a Driver from 17th July 2017 to 19th August 2018, his actual last day at work was 4th April 2018. He was employed on an ad hoc basis and was paid €120 per day. He has claimed that he worked excessive hours and was threatened to do so.

The Worker stated that he was forced to work extreme hours and travel distances and work in unsafe environments. His normal hours were 8.00am to 5.00pm. These changed last September to 8.00am to 7.00/8.00/9.00pm. He was delivering white goods and he was given set runs with drops of 11 to 13 per day. He raised complaints he was told to just get the job done, if not just leave and there would be no work for him. He went to Citizens Information and he then sent in a claim.

The Employer stated that the Worker was a member of a pool of drivers. He had an Ad Hoc contract of employment. This was an If and When contract, but he got regular work. His contract stated, “you are free to accept or decline such offer of work”. His normal hours would be generally 8.00to 5.00pm. The Transport Manager stated that most of the times the drivers finished at 4.00/4.30pm each day. There was a seasonal peak at Christmas running from the last week of November to the end of the January sales. The Worker was delivering white goods. No customer would want these goods delivered 7.00to 9.00pm. They did not accept that he worked that late. He was given a Staff Handbook that contained a Grievance Procedure. He only raised one complaint on 4th April 2018 about these matters. He sent an email about a different matter on 6th December.

He never invoked and exhausted the grievance procedure and this claim is rejected.

I note the conflict of evidence in this case.

I find that this is an Industrial Relations claim.

I find that there is a requirement that a person taking a claim under this Act must raise and formal grievance and have it fully exhausted before submitting a claim to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

The WRC must not be first port of call in a dispute resolution.

The Labour Court in Recommendation INT 1014 stated, “The Court is not prepared to insert itself into the procedural process in a situation where the dispute resolution procedures have been bypassed”.

As the Worker has not invoked and exhausted the internal grievance procedure in the company I am not prepared to involve myself in a dispute that has not been given a fair chance to be resolved at local level.

For the above stated reasons, I recommend that this claim is not well founded and so it fails.

Raising and exhausting grievance