Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Worker

Health Sector Employer

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 - 00001000

11/01/2023

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 worker’s case is that he was working as a Porter in one location, and he transferred to another location. The duties of Porter in the second location we're different to those in the first location. As the new location was a smaller site a number of cleaning duties were included in the role profile. However, the job spec was never given to him before he moved to this new location. He stated that after more than two months in situ, his line manager approached him and raised the issue of cleaning duties in front of a number of people. The worker submitted that this was the first he had heard of additional cleaning duties. He was told that he would have to undertake the duties or that there would be consequences.

The following week he took a grievance, and the matter was heard by one of the supervisors. He asked for certain questions to be answered but only received a very brief response. The outcome was that he was told that he could not pick and choose his duties and his failure to undertake certain duties would result in disciplinary consequences. 

He then escalated his grievance to the second stage and the matter was heard by the employee relations manager. The decision of the appeal was to uphold the original decision. When the union representing the worker sought to make a reference under stage three of the process, the employer suggested that it could not be resolved in that fashion and suggested that the union to take a complaint to the WRC.

The employer’s case is that at all times the worker was aware that his role included cleaning duties. As this site was a smaller sight to the workers previous place of employment, in duties were included in a Porter's role. The employer stated that it had provided the worker with a copy of his job specification prior to commencing at this location. It was unable to say when this document what's given to the worker but insisted that it had been.

The employer submitted that it considered the grievance and issued a decision to the worker sometime in June. It received an appeal sometime at the end of June or beginning of July and the appeal was heard on 8 July. Following this a decision issued to the worker upholding the initial decision.

The employer confirmed that there was no collective aspect 2 this case and that all of its staff receive training from its training provider accordingly the worker was rusted to attend training with his colleagues although they were not Porter staff.

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

Having regard to the submissions put forward by both parties and to the clarifications provided during the hearing, it appears that although the employer has a grievance procedure in place it is not particularly robust or being followed with due consideration to the ideals of justice and fairness.  The person hearing the grievance at the first stage was also the person who was responsible for giving the job spec to the worker in the first place. I therefore suggest that the procedures be tightened up both in terms of documenting complaints under the grievance procedure but also in terms of the independence of decision makers.  I am aware that the worker tried to resolve matters informally initially but was left with no option but to raise a formal grievance.

What is apparent is that there is a suggestion that induction documentation was given to the worker but that no record was kept of giving the documentation to him. This is a situation where matters could have been finalised sooner if a record of induction documentation was kept.  I am not satisfied that the worker was provided with his job specification at the outset of his employment or that he was provided with it until ‘sometime’ in May.

In relation to the processing of the grievance, it appears that no record just kept of the times and date of documentations or of meetings. The employer suggested that a decision issued sometime in June but there appeared to be two versions in existence, one which was submitted by the worker, another submitted by the employer. The worker denied receiving the decision but plainly must have received some decision to have appealed it under stage 2.  This is not an acceptable manner for processing a grievance.

It seems obvious that where a smaller site is operating, additional duties maybe given to certain people or classes of employee. However, such additional work, where it is a regular feature, should be reflected in a job specification and that job spec should be given to workers at the start of their employment on site, if not before. The employer suggested that where a transfer was taking place from one site to another it was incumbent upon my worker to seek to ascertain the duties of their new role. While I agree that a person seeking to move should try to ascertain the tasks involved in their now role at a new location, the onus is on the employer to provide details of the terms and conditions to an employee. I consider that the employer has been remiss in not providing those details to the worker in a timely fashion and noting when such details (as required under employment rights legislation0 were provided to the worker.

In the circumstances the worker submitted that compensation may be appropriate but that it was not a primary concern. The employer, in turn, refuted any suggestion that compensation is appropriate in this case as it simply required the employee to do his job. However, if he was not aware of what that job consisted of, it may be the case that compensation is appropriate.

The employer is not in a position to show that the job spec was provided to the worker at any stage prior to ‘sometime’ in May, three months after he started work.  I am satisfied that compensation is warranted in this case and consider that €500 is appropriate.

IR complaint -  grievance procedure – terms and conditions of employment not provided – recommendation – award of compensation