Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Fitter

Construction company

Representatives

  Self-represented

 Did not attend

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-00036461-001

31/05/2020

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

CA-00036462-001

31/05/2020

CA-00036461-001 and CA-00036462-001 are identical complaints and will be treated as one complaint.

This is a complaint of an unlawful deduction of €1346 from the complainant’s wages made on the 7 February 2020.

The complainant commenced employment as a fitter with the respondent on 23 August 2019.

He works 47 hours a week. His gross weekly salary is €736, and his net salary is €630.

He submitted his complaint to the WRC on 31/5/2020.

CA-00036461-001 and CA-00036462-001 are identical complaints and will be treated as one complaint.

The complainant states that respondent has been consistently unreliable regarding payment dates and pay slips.

 The complainant stated that he worked the for three weeks prior to week ending the 7 February. He was not paid for any of the three weeks.

The complainant submitted pay slips which he obtained from Revenue and copies of his bank statements.

For the week ending the 24 January 2020, he received a pay slip for €736 gross, net € €622.83, yet he received no salary.

For the week ending the 31 January he worked 23 hours, received a pay slip for a gross salary of €384, net €353.28 but he received no payment.

For week ending the 7 February 2020 he received a pay slip for €384, net €361.97, which was holiday pay owed to him, but no money was paid into his bank account.

He received 3 pay slips but no money. The complainant submitted his bank accounts which contained no salary lodgements from the respondent in respect of the three weeks, unlike previously.

The respondent advised him by email on 15 February that he will pay the complainant when he receives monies owed to him.

The gross salary payable to the complainant for the three weeks is €1504.The complainant submits that he is therefore due his net salary payment amounting to €1347 in respect of the above dated three weeks.

The respondent failed to provide him with a contract of employment.

The respondent though notified of the time and date of the hearing did not attend.

He advised the WRC on the 25 February that he would not attend the hearing.

CA-00036461-001 and CA-00036462-001 are identical complaints.

The question for determination is whether the respondent’s failure to pay the complainant the sum of € 1347 contravened section 5(1) of the Act of 1991

Relevant Law.

The Act at Section 5 provides as follows:

“5. (1) An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee (or receive any payment from an employee) unless—•(a) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of any statute or any instrument made under statute,

(b) the deduction (or payment) is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a term of the employee's contract of employment included in the contract before, and in force at the time of, the deduction or payment, or

(c) in the case of a deduction, the employee has given his prior consent in writing to it”.

There was no evidence to demonstrate the availability of these statutory protections which would permit the employer to deduct this complainant’s wages. The complainant was not informed of the intended deduction.

Section   5 (6) of the Act of 1991 goes on to identify a deduction as follows:

“(b)None of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making such deductions as aforesaid) are paid to the employee

then, except in so far as the deficiency or non-payment is attributable to an error of computation, the amount of the deficiency or non-payment shall be treated as a deduction made by the employer”

The uncontested evidence of the complainant is that he worked for the weeks commencing Monday 20 January, Monday 27 January, and was due payment in lieu of leave for the week commencing   Monday 3 February 2020. The uncontested evidence is that his employer did not pay him for those three weeks and that the sum of €1346 which is equal to 3 weeks’ net wages is” properly payable” to the complainant.

I find that the failure to pay him the sum of €1346 is a breach of Section 5(6)(b) of the Payment of Wages Act,1991 and is an illegal deduction.

In accordance with section 6(2) of the Act of 1991, I order the respondent to pay the complainant the sum of €1346 which is the net amount of the wages unlawfully deducted from him on the 7/2/ 2020.

I find the complaint to be well founded.

CA-00036461-001 and CA-00036462-001 are identical complaints and are treated as one complaint.

 I find that the failure to pay the complainant a week’s wages is a breach of Section 5(6)(b) of the Payment of Wages Act and is an illegal deduction.

I order the respondent to pay the complainant his net wages of €1346.

Payment of Wages; illegal deduction