Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A General Operative

A Motor-vehicle Repair Company

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-xxxxx

28/09/2021

The Worker has been employed by the Employer as a General Operative since November 2013.

The Worker claims that he raised a number of grievances with his employer from a Health and Safety perspective which were not dealt with, and he has been accused of being a troublemaker. The Worker is seeking to have this adjudicated upon by way of a trade dispute in accordance with the provisions of Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

This matter was previously the subject of an IR claim the recommendation which was that matter should e dealt with by way of Internal procedures before seeking recourse to the WRC.

The Worker submits that

Since his initial complaint (referred in January 2021) concluded due to legal technicality created by the employer he feels it is necessary to resubmit it again.

 In April 2019 the worker reported a structural damage to racking system that in his opinion could result in a collapse of the structure if allowed to go unchecked, he received basic training to provide such opinion and a complaint has been filed with the HSA around November 2020 (over a year since first alarm) as he hoped this matter could be resolved internally.

Since 2019 the worker claims that the Manging Director Mr. H kept on dodging resolving this problem and multiple times changing his responses when asked. At first he was assuring that it was all fine as "the people who setup this racking are very serious and they would not allow themselves for anything to happen to it" than some time has passed and the worker states that he  started asking about to see the certificates for that racking as they are required by law where the response was "oh its somewhere in a drawer and i have no key" than when person holding the key was in the office he asked again but response was "oh he is to busy and has no time to deal with this BS" at some point the person who erected said racking had a look at it and said "yeah it already was like that" (please note that one of the managers have eluded that said "professional" is working for a company certified to erect such structures but is not certified himself).

Some time passed and covid hit the world there was a lockdown in the summer and the worker came back to work after few days and started to ask about Covid related changes to the workplace (on few occasions the worker even left as he felt it was not safe for him, this resulted with him being verbally abused as a "troublemaker" and that there was an email with procedures sent to "everyone" and he should know already.  The worker submits that he never got any emails from the company the whole year of 2020 nor could the boss provide a proof that it was sent despite assurances that he did, it took until September for management to print a one-page document back dated for March 2020.

 The worker submits that in the meantime he discovered a much more complex PDF on the company website created in May 2020 titled "COVID 19 POLICY" (in the workers assessment the managing director never even knew that one of the mangers created this document and then in September came up on the fly with that one-page document he had received).  The worker submits that his attempts to communicate/complain/seek resolution with the company have failed.

The Employer submits that the matters outlined in this claim were the subject of a previous dispute referred to the WRC and on which the AO declined to make a recommendation as the matter had not been through the internal company grievance procedure.

The employer advised the hearing that the company had since received an official grievance from the Worker on 14 July 2021 and had appointed an external investigator to investigate the matter.  Both parties advised that the investigator met with the worker and agreed 13 Terms of Reference for the investigation.   This took place on the 22nd of July and the Worker resigned his employment on the 16th of August 2021 while the investigation was still ongoing.

The worker at the hearing agreed that an external investigator had been assigned to deal with his complaint and that he had met with the investigator on 22 July and agreed Terms of Reference for the investigation.  The worker stated that he had asked that the investigation be concluded within 2 weeks, but this had not happened.  The worker state that the investigation had been delayed and the reason given by the investigator was that she was trying to schedule interviews with members of the management team but was having difficulty as they were on holiday.  The employer told the hearing that the Worker had been unreasonable and had resigned his position on the 16th of August just 3 weeks after the investigation had commenced and while it was still ongoing.  The worker stated that he found it very unbelievable that all members of management were on holidays at the same time.  He stated that he decided to resign due to the way he was treated by the company and due to its failure to address his complaints.

The Worker stated that he had now left the job and was seeking compensation in respect of these matters.  The Worker has also submitted an Unfair Dismissal claim in respect of his resignation claiming constructive unfair dismissal.

I note that that this claim was previously referred back to the parties to undergo an internal procedure which commenced on 22 July and was still ongoing at the time of the Workers resignation.   Having considered the circumstances of this claim I do not recommend in favour of the worker.

Having considered the circumstances of this claim I do not recommend in favour of the worker.