ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00026847
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Parties | Ioana Ramona Retean | CCS Cleaning Services |
Representatives | Not represented | Not represented |
Complaint:
Act | Complaint Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 | CA-00034090-001 | 30/01/2020 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 15/10/2021
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne
Procedure:
This complaint was submitted to the WRC on January 1st 2020 and, in accordance with section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, it was assigned to me by the Director General. Due to the closure of the WRC as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, a hearing was delayed until October 15th 2021. I conducted a remote hearing on that date, in accordance with the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and Statutory Instrument 359/2020 which designates the Workplace Relations Commission as a body empowered to hold remote hearings. At the hearing, I gave the parties an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence relevant to the complaint. Both parties represented themselves. Ms Retean had the assistance of a Romanian interpreter. The group head of human resources (HR), Mr Ciarán Condron, a HR advisor, Ms Brygida Szeliga and an area manager, Mr Pawel Piwonski, attended and gave evidence for CCS Cleaning.
While the parties are named in this decision, I will refer to Ms Retean as “the complainant” and to CCS Cleaning as “the respondent.”
Background:
The complainant joined the respondent’s cleaning company on May 6th 2019, having transferred from a previous employer. She had continuous service from January 5th 2018. She worked as a cleaning operative on the pre-opening shift in a major clothes retailer in Dublin city. Her complaint is that her hours of work were changed without written notice in her contract of employment. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
The complainant was assigned to work from 6.00am to 8.30am from Monday to Saturday in the store in Dublin city. Because the security staff opened the store at 5.30am, the complainant and some of her colleagues started work at 5.30am and finished at 8.00am. In September 2019, the client instructed their security company to open at 6.00am instead of 5.30am, with the result that the complainant was prevented from starting at 5.30am. While she could commence work at 6.00am, she wasn’t able to work from 8.00am to 8.30am because she had other commitments. Although the respondent offered her alternative hours, she wasn’t able to take up the offer and she was therefore at a loss of three hours every week from the date of the change. In contravention of section 5 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994, the complainant claims that she was not notified in writing of this change to her hours of work. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
In September 2019, the employees cleaning the store in Dublin were prevented from starting work at 5.30am because the security contractor changed the opening time to 6.00am. Due to a breakdown in communications, the Head of HR said that some of the employees were not aware of the change, and had to wait for half an hour until the security officers opened up. The area manager said that he went to the store and spoke to the cleaning team, and also to the management of the store. The management said that the store would not be opened before 6.00am. A copy of the complainant’s contract was submitted in evidence at the hearing. Under the heading, “Hours of Work,” the contract shows that the complainant will be required to work not less than five hours and not more than 39 hours in any week, after which an overtime rate applies. With regard to rostering of the weekly hours, the contract states, “You are required to work during the hours shown in the employee shift rota for the site at which you are based or at any other location where you have been asked to work. At sites which operate over seven days, all employees are expected to work weekends.” The shift rota at the site where the complainant was assigned to work provided that her hours were from 6.00am to 8.30am from Monday to Saturday. The head of HR said that, apart from the complainant, the other employees affected by the change in the opening time agreed to start work at 6.00am and to finish at 8.30am. The complainant couldn’t work from 8.00am to 8.30am and she wasn’t free to work any alterative hours. On September 16th 2019, the HR advisor wrote to the complainant to confirm that it would not be possible to start work in the store before 6.00am. In her letter she told the complainant that the company was more than happy for staff to work later in the morning, so that they could continue to work their normal hours. Following a meeting with the complainant, the head of HR said that it was evident that she had no option but to reduce her hours of work. As a gesture of goodwill, the company agreed to pay her nine hours’ pay, equivalent to the value of her lost hours for three weeks. The complainant left her job with this company one year later, on September 13th 2020. |
Findings and Conclusions:
Having listened to the evidence of both sides at the hearing of this complaint, it is apparent that the complainant was inconvenienced because of the fact that an informal early starting arrangement came to an end. I am satisfied that there was no change to her terms and conditions of employment which required an amendment to her contract. |
Decision:
Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.
I have decided that this complaint is not well-founded. |
Dated: 18th October 2021
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne
Key Words:
Change to start time, amendment to terms and conditions of employment |