Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Worker

A Health Service Employer

Representatives

Gerard Kennedy SIPTU

Valerie Enright, HR Representative

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

IR - SC - 00000040

04/04/2022

This matter was heard by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2020 and S.I. No. 359/2020 which designates the WRC as a body empowered to hold remote hearings.

The employer is a Health Service Employer, and the worker is a Porter.

The worker submitted that his internal grievances were not dealt with by his employer. He lodged a grievance in June 2021. The company operates a staged process grievance procedure, that includes three stages.  Each of the stages has a seven-day time frame Built in two the process.

The grievance was raised informally with his supervisor, and he was told to refer the matter to his line manager. He submitted that the matter was submitted but that the employer kept knocking it back thereby effectively not dealing with the matter.

The worker submitted that there was an agreed grievance procedure but that this was abandoned by the employer when it suited them.

After the lodgement of the dispute to the WRC the employer sought to engage with the worker via its HR function, however given the repeated nature of its abandonment the worker refused to engage with the process. The worker submitted that this was not an isolated incident and given the repeated nature of delays dealing with grievance procedure, he felt justified in seeking to pursue matters to a conclusion at the WRC.

The worker is seeking a recommendation to hold an investigation into how his grievances have been handled. He's also seeking compensation and suggested compensation in the €5000 to €7000 range.

The employer agreed that a complaint was lodged however it noted that initially the complaint was lodged to the HR function, not the line manager. The employer noted that the complaint was referred back to the line manager. The representative noted that a meeting took place at the end of July, over a month after the complaint was lodged. It was noted that this is arose due to annual leave. It was further noted that when the worker was approached to engage with his line manager in September, he refused to meet with him. This refusal continued throughout September and no further action was taken until the complaint was lodged with the WRC.

The employer agreed that this matter was not dealt with in a timely fashion and noted that an investigation into this matter was probably warranted. The employer suggested that compensation was not appropriate in relation to this case. The employer also noted that following lodgement of the complaint to the WRC, it tried to engage with the worker to remedy this matter however all attempts had been rebuffed.

In conducting my investigation, I have taken into account all relevant submissions presented to me by the parties.

Having considered the submissions of both parties it appears that a grievance was lodged initially on 25 June 2021. It was initially lodged with HR rather than the line manager, who was out on leave. Upon his return HR related the complaint to him for consideration. HR was told that the matter had been addressed in a meeting at the end of July, but the worker denied that any such meeting took place. Thereafter when the worker tried to escalate matters in accordance with the grievance procedure, he was continually rebuffed with the employer indicating that the matter had to go to the line manager. It was agreed that each stage of the procedure would be processed in seven days where possible however it appears but in this instance the grievance was initially looked at by the line manager some 10 weeks later and that the next step up was continuously denied to the worker.

The worker tried to have his grievance heard and when his line manager did not consider the matter, he sought to have it considered the next step up. This did not happen. In effect it took the lodgement of a complaint to the WRC to have his grievance considered in accordance with the policy that was supposed to be agreed between the employer and the union. The effect of this is that there was no grievance policy being operated in relation to this worker.

I note that the worker did not engage with the employer in this regard once an industrial relations complaint was lodged with the WRC, despite repeated attempts at engagement on the part of the employer. Although admittedly these attempts were at a very late stage, there was no barrier for the worker to have matters resolved at that stage, while also pursuing it complaint in relation to the delay.

Having considered matters I conclude that it would be useful to have an independent investigation of what went wrong in relation to this grievance and that the union, and the employer can consider how to streamline their agreed procedure to ensure this does not happen again.

I also conclude that once a complaint is lodged with the WRC for consideration, it is preferable for the parties to engage with one another to resolve any outstanding matters where the option is put forward by one party or another.

I further conclude that it would be useful to have a step whereby if there is a difficulty with the grievance procedure, either party can seek to have and independent person (not necessarily outside wither organisation but not involved in the dispute) to look at the operation of their system in an informal fashion to ensure that there is no undue delay.

Finally, I conclude that where a worker has effectively been ignored when raising a grievance through the agreed grievance procedure and is left with no option but to take a complaint to the WRC some ten months later, compensation is appropriate.

IR Complainant - Grievance procedure effectively not followed – investigation recommended – compensation recommended.