Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Training Administrator

A Training Company

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00028585-001

21/05/2019

The complainant commenced her employment with the respondent as a training administrator on June 27th 2018. On March 4th 2019, she was notified that her employment would end in two weeks and her last day at work was March 14th 2019. Her complaint is that, when her employment was terminated, she did not receive pay in lieu of notice.

The complainant said that when she started working for the respondent, she worked for four days a week, and then she worked for five days a week. In the period leading up to the termination of her employment, she said that she agreed that she would work two and a half days a week.

Copies of payslips that the complainant produced at the hearing showed that she was paid €1,000 per month for working for 20 days.

In her evidence, the complainant described a disorganised situation in her workplace. She didn’t receive a contract of employment, her days at work appear to have been erratic and she was not always paid on time.   She had no record of the number of days that she worked in any month and no record of the holidays taken from the date of her commencement in June 2018 until she finished up in March 2019.

The respondent did not attend the hearing.

On her complaint form, the complainant said that she didn’t receive the appropriate amount of pay in lieu of notice when her employment ended on March 14th 2019. She said that she was informed on March 4th that her employment would end in two weeks and she worked until March 14th. On this basis, it is clear that the complainant received her statutory entitlement to one week’s notice of the termination of her employment and I conclude therefore that she is not entitled to be paid in lieu.

From my examination of the complainant’s final payslip, it is apparent that, on April 3rd 2019, she received €1,000 gross in respect of the days she worked from March 1st – 14th. This is the amount she was normally paid for working 20 days. However, in the last two weeks of her employment, she said that she worked for two and half days each week, five days in total. As she worked for five days and she was paid what she was normally paid for working 20 days, I find that there was no shortfall in her wages in respect of the hours she worked in the two last weeks of her employment.

As the complainant worked for this employer for eight and a half months, she had a statutory entitlement to 14 days’ holidays. She said that she went on holidays for about three weeks from December 17th until January 7th, but she could not recall if she was paid while she was on holidays. It appears however, that, as she received an additional 15 days’ pay in her final wages, there is no shortfall in respect of pay in lieu of any holidays that she did not take.

Having considered the evidence of the complainant and having examined the payslips that she submitted at the hearing of this complaint, I decide that her complaint under the Payment of Wages Act is not upheld.

Pay in lieu of notice