Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	A Driver	An Employer

Representatives

IBEC

Complaint:

Act	Dispute Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under the Industrial Relations Acts	CA-00020833-001	27/07/2018

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 23/10/2018

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969following the referral of the dispute to me by the Director General, I inquired into the dispute and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the dispute.

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

The complainant commenced employment on May 14th 2018 and her employment terminated on June 13th.

She says the termination of her employment was unfair and seeks a remedy under the Industrial Relations Act. There had been no disciplinary procedure or training.

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

She was assigned to the respondent as a temporary agency worker on the basis of a ten-month contract and the respondent is the ‘hirer/end user’ and not her direct employer.

A copy of her contract was exhibited in evidence.

The respondent has a contract with the agency which allows it to terminate the assignment of one of its employees to its company on the giving of one week’s notice to the agency. It did so for reasons unrelated to the complainant ‘s performance.

Even then, the complainant remains an employee of the agency as far as the respondent is concerned and therefore the respondent says it is not the employer for the purposes of a case such as this.

Findings and Conclusions:

It was clear at the hearing that the complainant misunderstood the nature of her employment relationship as between her actual employer and the respondent.

I find that she was not employed by the respondent at any time and the termination of her role there did not, of itself, affect her employment status with the employer.

Accordingly, no dismissal took place involving the current respondent.

Recommendation:

Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts, 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute.

For the reasons set out above I do not uphold complaint CA-00020833-001 and it is dismissed.

Dated: 9th January, 2019

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady

Key Words: