Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Supervisor/Foreman

A Construction Company

Representatives

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 39 of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967

CA-00020693-001

22/07/2018

The Complainant commenced work with the Respondent, a construction company, in January 2014. He initially worked as a general operative before assuming the role of Site Supervisor/Foreman on subsequent projects.

The Complainant’s employment ended on 22 January 2018 and he submitted his complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission on 22 June 2018, under the Redundancy Payment Act, 1967.

The Complainant stated, in his submission, that he had worked for the Respondent for a period of four years, during which he supervised the installation of water metres and ducting for fibre-optic cable.

The Complainant submitted that his employment with the Respondent was terminated in January 2018, without notice and/or redundancy payment.

The Complainant is now seeking redundancy payment from the Respondent.

The Respondent submitted that the Complainant commenced employment on 31 January 2014 as a pipe layer on a contract they had with Irish Water. It was further stated that the Complainant operated in this role until December 2015. According to the Respondent, a second phase of the Irish Water contract commenced in March 2016 and continued until February 2017.   It was submitted that the Complainant worked on this contract as a Foreman.

The Respondent further stated that in April 2017, they commenced a contract, for a different client, which involved the laying of ducting for fibre-optic cable. The Respondent stated that the Complainant took over as supervisor on this project. According to the Respondent’s submission, it was the Complainant’s responsibility to make sure that the project ran well and that the client company’s representative was kept happy at all times.

According to the Respondent’s evidence, there were issues with the Complainant’s performance in this regard. In support of this, the Respondent stated that, in December 2017, he was informed by the client company that they (the Respondent) may lose the contract based on the quality of the work being carried out. The Respondent further submitted that he received an email on 8 January 2018 from the client advising that they (the Respondent) would not be returning to continue work on the project. It was further submitted that while there were seven sub-contracting companies involved, the Respondent was the only one dropped from the project.

The Respondent submitted that they were able to replace the lost contract with a new one from Irish Water. However, the Respondent submitted in evidence that the Complainant was not brought back to work on this new project because he was not able to do the work of supervisor and manage the team appropriately.

The Respondent also submitted that while some employees, who had been working on the fibre-optic contract, were brought back to work on the new project, others, including the Complainant, were let go. However, the Respondent submitted that nobody was made redundant.

Section 7 (2) of the Redundancy Payment Act, 1967, states as follow:

“For the purposes of subsection (1), an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if the dismissal is attributable wholly or mainly to –

(a)the fact that his employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purpose of which the employee was employed by him, or has ceased or intends to cease, to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed, or

(b)the fact that the requirements of that business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, or for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where he was so employed have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish.”

Having carefully considered the evidence presented by the Complainant and that provided, at the Hearing, by the Respondent, I am satisfied that, in the context of the above section from the Act, the termination of the Complainant’s employment in January 2018 does not represent a dismissal by reason of redundancy.

I find that, while the Respondent lost the contract the Complainant had been working on up to that point, they acquired a replacement contract onto which a number of the employees who had been working on the previous contract were transferred. The Complainant was not one of the employees who was retained. I am satisfied that the reason for this was performance related and that no redundancy situation existed.

Consequently, I find that the Complainant's claim for redundancy is not well founded.

Having carefully considered all of the evidence adduced and based on the considerations/findings as detailed above, I find the Complainant’s claim for redundancy is not well founded and is, therefore, rejected.

Redundancy Payments Act