Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Estelle  Kirby

 De Barra Kitchens

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-00053730-001

15/11/2022

The complainant had made a detailed submission on various difficulties in her working relationship with the respondent.

She attributed some of these difficulties to the failure of the respondent to provide her with details of her terms of employment and said that she had requested details of her job role some days after being appointed.

She got a reply which included some details; start date, hourly rate of pay and her working hours but no other information.

She confirmed that she worked with the respondent for around four months but had not been given any statement of her Terms of Employment as required by the relevant statutes.

The respondent confirmed that he had not provided the complainant with either of the statutory statements.

He said that he was uncertain about continuing the complainant in her employment and delayed giving it to her, although he had provided her with some information.

It is unusual to have a case in which the sole complaint arises under this Act. Normally, it will be added to other issues arising between parties.

There appear to have been plenty of such issues in this case also but none of them fell within the jurisdiction of a WRC adjudication hearing.

I am dubious about the complainant’s assertion that provision of the limited (but important) information required by the Terms of Employment (Information) Act would have avoided some of the subsequent difficulties which arose between her and the respondent.

Those difficulties (according to the complaint form) related to general operational matters and while the parties’ relationship might have benefitted from greater clarity in written form in a job description or a contract, for example, that is not the issue here.

Equally, when the respondent set out a selection of the terms within the initial five-day period it should not have been difficult for him to provide the other details required by the legislation. They are not onerous and should all be known to, and easily accessed by an employer.

Accordingly, it only falls to determine the term of employment complaint and I do so in the complainant’s favour. She was paid €750 per week.

Complaint CA-00053730-001 is well founded and I award the complainant €1,500.00

Terms of Employment