Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Daniela  Barreiros Silva

Aquasoft International

Representatives

  N/A

N/A

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-00038517-001

03/07/2020

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent as a secretary on 21 September 2019 and was paid a monthly salary of €1,833.33. She was dismissed from her employment on 19 June 2020 and stated in her complaint form that she was not paid for the period she worked from 1 June to 19 June 2020 and also did not receive any notice pay or her outstanding holiday entitlements.

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent as a secretary on 21 September 2019 and was paid a gross monthly salary of €1,833.33. She claimed that she was dismissed from her employment on 19 June 2020 and stated in her complaint form that she was not paid for the period she worked from 1 June to 19 June 2020 and also did not receive either any notice pay or her outstanding holiday entitlements even though the Respondent had indicated to her that he would pay her these amounts.

The Respondent did not attend to give evidence and did not provide any written submission in advance of the hearing.

THE LAW

Section 1 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 states:

“ 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

The Act at Section 5, in relevant part, 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.

And

5(6) Where—

(a) the total amount of any wages that are paid on any occasion by an employer to an employee is less than the total amount of wages that is properly payable by him to the employee on that occasion (after making any deductions therefrom that fall to be made and are in accordance with this Act), or

(b) none of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making any 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 from the wages of the employee on the occasion.

FINDINGS

While I note that the Complainant stated in her complaint form which was submitted to the WRC on 3 July 2021 that she had not received either her wages for the period she worked from 1 June 2020 to 19 June 2020 or her accrued holiday pay, she stated in her evidence that these were received by her after she had made her complaint and that she was therefore no longer seeking payment of these. The only issue for me to decide therefore is whether or not she received her notice entitlements.

I note from her evidence that she was entitled to one month’s notice pay on the termination of her employment but that this was not paid to her. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary from the Respondent, I find that this complaint is well founded.

I find that this complaint is well founded for the reasons set out above.

Given that she was entitled to receive one month’s notice and that her net monthly pay was €1,643.93, I find that the Respondent should pay the Complainant this amount.

Unpaid notice;