Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Supervisor

A Transport Services Provider

Representatives

Dermot O'Loughlin Alpha Employment Representation Services

Ciaran Loughran , IBEC

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00042342-001

05/02/2021

The Worker has a number of difficulties with her Employer which largely arise from the way that she was treated during the pandemic. She asserted that this alleged ill-treatment has caused her considerable hardship.

The Worker commenced her employment with the Employer on 15th May 2005 where she is engaged as a Supervisor. Due to the pandemic, she was put on layoff from 29th March 2020.

During the period of layoff, namely from 29th March 2020, she was in regular contact with the HR department and SIPTU representatives looking for updates on when she could return to work on her contracted hours. She ultimately returned on reduced hours on 10th August 2020.

She subsequently invoked the Employer’s grievance procedure, along with three other colleagues in a supervisory role, but was not allowed to be represented by an Industrial Relations Specialist even though her colleagues had been allowed to have this same representation a number of months earlier

Her grievance related to the following issues:

·       Breach of Dignity in the workplace.

·       Failure to provide fair and reasonable hours during and ongoing short-time period.

·       Failure to meaningfully process formal grievance procedure.

·       Failure to Provide Adequate and Reasonable Communications throughout the ongoing “Temporary” Lay-Off Period

·       Financial Hardship as a Consequence of Reduced Hours.

·       Anomalies arising from Covid 19 Wage Subsidy Schemes.

·       Outcome to the appeal process is unreasonable and unfair.

·       New hours were not agreed to.

·       Breach of terms and conditions of contract of employment

She received the outcome of her grievance on December 3rd 2020 and was informed that her complaints were not upheld. As a result, she appealed the decision on 9th December 2020 but did not receive any response despite following up and sending a further email on 11th January 2021 and her appeal was not heard.

She referred her complaint to the WRC for investigation on 5th February 2021.

The Employer highlighted, as a preliminary point, that the Worker did not avail of the appeal process outlined in the grievance outcome document and disputed that any documentation was received in relation to an appeal.

Having received no appeal further to the grievance outcome being issued, the Employer assumed that the matters were resolved until they received the complaint form from the Workplace Relations Commission in February 2021

I find that the Worker made insufficient efforts to ascertain whether or not the manager to whom she had sent her appeal had actually received her correspondence and read it.

As a result, I do not believe that the Employer’s grievance procedure was fully exhausted prior to the matter being referred to the WRC.

I cannot make a recommendation that is favourable to the Worker for the reasons set out above.