Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Cleaner

A Contract Cleaning company

Representatives

Andrew Vallely Partners At Law

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under the Industrial Relations Acts

CA-00018405-001

10/04/2018

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under the Industrial Relations Acts

CA-00018407-001

10/04/2018

The complainant had been employed by the respondent between September 2017 and April 2018 for twenty hours per week on a wage of €10.40 per hour.

Her employment was terminated in April 2018.

Complaint CA-00018407-001 is a duplicate and was withdrawn at the hearing.

The complainant had been on annual leave and on her return was asked to go to her manager on conclusion of her shift in relation to an incident which had occurred when she had been on leave.

In fact, she went straight away and was told her employment was being terminated.

She says she was entitled to warnings before such action could be taken.

From February 2018 there was a deterioration in the complainant’s standard of work and there were complaints about her from the client, which was a hospital.

At a meeting on April 9th to discuss the matter the complainant became aggressive and used strong language to her manager. She persisted with this and also used threatening gestures towards the manager

She demanded her P45 and said she wish to resign from her employment.

The complainant left the meeting and continued to engage in abusive conduct in the hearing of co-workers and patients.

On April 12th the respondent wrote to the complainant inviting her to an investigation meeting on April 16th to consider the incident. She was invited to bring a union representative or other person to accompany her and was given details as to the purpose of the investigation and a copy of the disciplinary procedure.

She did not attend.

A further invitation issued to a second meeting scheduled for April 16th and again she failed to attend.

A third invitation was sent on April 19th but again the complainant did not attend.

There was telephone communication with her on April 25th and she was adamant that she would not come to the meeting and again demanded her P45.

Accordingly, she was taken off the payroll on April 27th.

Nothing further was heard from her until the matter was referred to the WRC.

It is clear from the above narrative that considerable efforts were made by the respondent to engage with the complainant in the period from April 9th onwards.

The complainant confirmed at the hearing that she did not attend any of the meetings as asserted in the respondent’s submission.

This is a complaint under the Industrial Relations Act as the complainant did not have the service or other qualifying grounds to bring a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

It has been a central and core principle of previous and current employment tribunals and has been made clear by the Labour Court on numerous occasions that complaints under the Industrial Relations Act will only be entertained when the full gamut of procedures at the level of the workplace have been exhausted.

It would totally undermine dispute resolution in the workplace to do otherwise, and this, of course is the reason for the strong position taken by the Court, and followed by the former Rights Commissioner Service, and now the Adjudication Service of the WRC.

As will be seen above the complainant accepted at the hearing that she did not cooperate with or participate in the first step in the workplace procedures, and indeed refused to do so.

There was no reasonable basis for her actions or for her failure to avail of the procedures at the level of the workplace.

In the circumstances, her complaint cannot be further entertained, and it fails.

For the reasons set out above complaint CA-00019505-001 is dismissed.

Complaint CA-00019505-002 was withdrawn at the hearing.

Industrial relations Act; exhaustion of workplace procedures.