Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Luke  Drohan

Ellicro Environment Care Limited

Representatives

  Self represented

 No appearance

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-00049284-001

22/03/2022

The complaint is that the Respondent unlawfully deducted the sum of €2,612.04, being wages owed to the Complainant.

The Complainant stated that he was employed by the Respondent from 1st November 2021 up to March 14th 2022 and was not paid after his last salary on January 31st 2022. He stated that he is due a salary for the 6 weeks he worked from January 31st to March 14th.  The net amount is €2,612.04.  He did receive €500 cash which covered his expenses that were submitted for February, but not his salary.

The Respondent was notified of the time and date for the hearing but did not attend.  

 The Respondent did not attend the hearing convened to consider the Complainant’s complaint that he was owed six weeks wages.  Correspondence from the Chief Operations Officer received by the WRC stated that he had been advised legally not to attend as the sole representative of the company.  A link to the virtual hearing was sent to the other Director of the Company.  For the purpose of clarity in the matter, the Respondent cited by the Complainant is an entity and the complaint lodged by the Complainant is against that entity.  All correspondence including the hearing notice was sent to the company named by the Complainant as being the employer.  It is an internal matter for the company to identify the relevant persons within the company who should attend the hearing to respond to the complaint.  The WRC has performed its functions by copying the complaint and relevant correspondence to the company named by the Complainant.  My function as Adjudication Officer is to adjudicate on the complaint submitted by the Complainant against the company as opposed to individual officers of the company. 

The applicable law is provided for in Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 which states:

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.

Section 5 (6) provides:

(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.

I find that the Respondent contravened Section 5 of the Act, and that the complaint is well founded.  I require the Respondent to pay to the Complainant the net sum of €2,612.04.

Payment of wages, well founded.