Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Joe  O'Toole

One Eight Filtration Dynamics.ds Ltd

Representatives

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-00039363-001

25/08/2020

This matter was heard by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2020 and S.I. No. 359/2020 which designates the WRC as a body empowered to hold remote hearings.

The complainant attended the first hearing, the respondent did not.  Written submissions were received on the day of the first hearing as the hearing commenced.  This hearing was adjourned to allow the complainant to consider the content of the submissions.

Only the complainant attended the second hearing of this matter and gave his evidence under affirmation.  The respondent indicated by email that it would not be attending the hearing.

The complainant submitted that over the course of ten weeks of employment from January to March 2020, he was due to be paid €4250.10, however, he was only paid 1643.35 resulting in a shortfall of wages of €2606.75.

The complainant detailed the amounts that were due and paid to him over the course of 10 Weeks from the beginning of January 2020 until mid-March 2020.  In addition, he submitted that he did not receive €60 of receipted expenses.

The respondent made a number of allegations by way of written submission but did not attend the hearing of this complaint.  Accordingly, the veracity of those allegations could not be tested.

The complainant provided detailed information regarding the wage’s payments outstanding to him.    He gave a detailed breakdown of the payments made to him and those that were outstanding and provided documentation in support of his contention.  Under Section 1 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991 wages are defined as follows:

“wages”, in relation to an employee, means any sums payable to the employee by the employer in connection with his employment, including—

(a) any fee, bonus or commission, or any holiday, sick or maternity pay, or any other emolument, referable to his employment, whether payable under his contract of employment or otherwise, and

(b) any sum payable to the employee upon the termination by the employer of his contract of employment without his having given to the employee the appropriate prior notice of the termination, being a sum paid in lieu of the giving of such notice:

Provided however that the following payments shall not be regarded as wages for the purposes of this definition:

(i) any payment in respect of expenses incurred by the employee in carrying out his employment,

(ii) any payment by way of a pension, allowance or gratuity in connection with the death, or the retirement or resignation from his employment, of the employee or as compensation for loss of office,

(iii) any payment referable to the employee's redundancy,

(iv) any payment to the employee otherwise than in his capacity as an employee,

(v) any payment in kind or benefit in kind.

Having regard to the written and oral evidence presented in this matter I am satisfied that the complaint is well founded.  I find that the outstanding wages amount to €2606.75

As per the definition of wages under Section 1 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991, any amounts relating to outstanding expenses are not covered by this legislation.

Arising from my findings in relation to this complaint, my decision is to direct the employer to pay the complainant compensation equivalent to the net amount of the unpaid wages, namely €2606.75 which I consider to be reasonable in all the circumstances of this complaint.

Payment of Wages, well founded, compensation