Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Warehouse Operative

A Marketing Company

Representatives

IBEC

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00030943-001

16/09/2019

The complainant made a number of complaints to the WRC on September 16th 2019 against a manager about errors in relation to overtime payments, a reference to his sick leave, criticism of his driving and his appearance etc.

He had made a workplace complaint on the same issues on September 4th, 2018.

The original complaint was received by the respondent from the complainant on September 4th, 2018.

That same day the complainant was invited to an investigation meeting to take place three days later on September 7th. That meeting took place and the complainant was interviewed by his manager with a representative of the HR department in attendance.

A second meeting was convened to complete the investigation process and to seek to resolve the matter for the future. That meeting took place on September 14th 2018 and the matter was resolved at that stage; both parties agreeing to put the matter behind them and move on.

A letter confirming the outcome was sent to the complainant on September 19th noting both that the grievance had not been upheld and the agreement of the parties to put the matter behind them.

The respondent acting quickly and properly in responding to the complainant’s grievance. It was fully investigated and resolved, and the complaint should be dismissed.

It is hard to know what the complainant was seeking from the referral of this complaint.

The issues referred to in his submission to the WRC all pre-dated the complaint made a year earlier on September 4th 2018 to the respondent and are therefore covered by the process set up by the respondent to address his grievances and its outcome.

The respondent acted entirely in compliance with its procedures and expeditiously. Indeed, it is to be commended for acting quickly to bring the parties together to resolve matters at the second meeting.

The legislation under which this complaint was made provides an outlet for parties wishing to have the assistance of the WRC in resolving issues which have proved difficult to conclude at the level of the workplace.

In this case, despite the fact that the issues had been resolved at that level the complainant seems to believe he should be entitled to another ‘bite of the cherry’ just for the sake of it; no reasons were adduced as to why the resolution reached in the workplace should be subject to review.

The letter sent to him on September 19th clearly recorded the agreement of both to put the matters behind them. At no stage has he demurred from this.

In persisting with the matter, he showed little regard for the disruption and cost to the respondent and the WRC of having to conduct an utterly unnecessary hearing, as well as breaching the agreement to ‘move on’ agreed at the September 14th meeting.

The complaint is entirely without merit and it fails.

Complaint CA-00030943-001 is not well founded.

Use of workplace procedures.