Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A complainant

A Marketing Company

Representatives

Barry O’Mahony B.L instructed by ARAG Legal Protection

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-00031233-001

29/09/2019

The respondent is a marketing company and the complainant was employed as a Business Developer from 1 July 2016 to 27 September 2019.

The complainant submitted that he was not paid a bonus payment in accordance with his contract of employment for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. His contract of employment stated that his “payment will be based on an annual salary of €25,000”. It also stated that “there is a bonus payment of €2,500 per year based upon achieving set KPI’s and other targets will be advised.”

The complainant submitted that he was not paid any bonus for each year and that two small payments received in 2019 (€250 x 2) related to an incentive scheme rather than a bonus.

The respondent submitted that as the complaint was only made in August 2019, that the elements relating to 2017 & 2018 were out of time and therefore the WRC had not jurisdiction to deal with these matters.

In relation to the elements relating to 2019, the respondent stated that the incentive and bonus schemes were one and the same. It submitted that the complainant had been paid two elements of the applicable schemes for early 2019 and as the latter scheme was introduced after the complainant left their employment before its introduction, he was not entitled to benefit from this scheme.

CA-00031233-001

Section 41 (6) & (8) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 cover the time periods for submission of complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission, as follows:

(6) Subject to subsection (8), an adjudication officer shall not entertain a complaint referred to him or her under this section if it has been presented to the Director General after the expiration of the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.

(8) An adjudication officer may entertain a complaint or dispute to which this section applies presented or referred to the Director General after the expiration of the period referred to in subsection (6) or (7) (but not later than 6 months after such expiration), as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.

Arising from provision of these sections, I find that I am precluded from considering the matters relating to the elements of the complaint that relate to 2017 and 2018 in my decision. Furthermore, the complainant conceded that he was not entitled to a bonus payment under the incentive scheme introduced in the latter end of 2019 as he was no longer in employment.

Accordingly, I find that the complainant has not adduced facts from which it may be inferred that he is entitled to succeed in this complaint.

My decision is that, as I have found that the complainant did not adduce facts from which it may be inferred that he is entitled to succeed with his complaint, he cannot succeed and therefore his complaint fails.

Payment of wages, bonus, time limits S41 (6) & (8).