Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A complainant

A Retail Employer

Representatives

self 

Ciaran Loughran IBEC

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-00039575-001

03/09/2020

The complainant was employed by the respondent on a fixed term contract from February 2020 until August 2020. The contract was for a minimum of 12 hours per week and pay was at the rate of €10.50 per hour.

The complainant submitted that when the lockdown came, she was paid for the hours that she was rostered, close to full-time hours. The complainant further submitted that she was told by one of the managers in the store that she would continue to receive payment for full-time hours as they moved forward with the lockdown.

The complainant submitted that she was assured that she would continue to receive payment for the additional hours and that she would receive payment in the form of back money when the employer exited the Covid support scheme.

The complainant submitted that she received 80% of her contractual hours during the period when the store was closed due to the first lockdown

The complainant submitted that she was owed approximately 243 hours amounting to €1961.79 – 133 hours for April, and 110.2 hours for May 2020.

The complainant submitted that she was logged for full time hours on the HR computer system.

The complainant also submitted that a second manager told here that when she was stock taking that she could only work the 12 hours contracted or she could do additional hours and receive payment at a later date and that she did not receive payment for these hours.

The respondent submitted that it had paid the complainant all the monies that were due to her.   In relation to its involvement with the Covid Support Scheme, the respondent noted that it had repaid the State the payments it received and thereafter had paid the complainant 100% of the amounts she was due (as opposed to the 80% to which she was entitled under the scheme).

The respondent submitted detail both orally and in writing to address all of the shortfalls which were put to it, further submitted that there were no monies outstanding and it submitted that therefore it had no complaint to answer.

Having considered the evidence presented by both parties, I am not satisfied that the complainant has made out any case related to non-payment of the appropriate wages for the hours she worked. The complainant seems to have made out a case that she was not paid for hours that she didn’t undertake but asserted that two separate managers had indicated a likelihood that she would be paid for additional hours.

I note that the complainants contract sets out a 12-hour minimum per week and that, on occasion, she undertook more hours than that on somewhat regular basis when employees were present in the premises. I note that once lockdown came into effect, she was paid for all the hours she was rostered for. I also note that the evidence given by the respondent is that the complainant was paid for all the hours she undertook, and this was not disputed by the complainant.

I find that the complaint was not well founded.

My decision is that the complaint was not well founded.

Payment of wages, Well founded