Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Maria Sofia  Sison

Independent Clinical Services Ltd. Scottish Nursing Guild

Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Maria Sofia

Independent Clinical Services Ltd

Scottish Nursing Guild

Representatives

  self

 Operations Director

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00059584-001

24/10/2023

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00059584-002

24/10/2023

The Complainant brought this claim as despite numerous requests to understand why she was paid late, and frequent promises to ensure payment in line with her contract, no improvement occurred.

An excerpt from the complaint form shows the frustration experienced by this Complainant and the efforts that were made to get paid:

I had 3 sent them 3 timesheets (Sep. 30, Oct 11, Oct 12) at that point that had gone unpaid. I had contacted the payroll team 4 times already about the timesheet I submitted for Sep 30. I was told at each turn that they would put it through for processing, there was something wrong with their system, and they'll put it through to their IT team. Only this morning, October 24 did I receive a payslip for this timesheet, after multiple contacts, both phone and email. They replied to say that they can confirm the issue has been raised to their IT team. This issue has been ongoing for 6 months at this point, and I don't find it acceptable any longer to hear that 'its been raised to IT' time and time again. I haven't been given any indication that if not for me being proactive and continuously contacting the payroll department would my timesheets be processed and hence I would be paid for the work I do.

The following company representatives attended at the hearing:

Hi Siobhan, Thank you for reaching out. The list of attendees is as follows: Alex Stewart – Head of Operations – SNG  Jordan Balbirnie – Operations Manager Republic of Ireland – SNG – Susan Ades – Head of Payroll Operations – Ilona Morris – Senior Payroll Administrator

The Complainant submitted her agency contract and extensive correspondence asking why she was not being paid on time.

The Complainant made extensive efforts to understand why she was frequently paid late which in turn caused very significant distress and unnecessary financial planning issues around payment to others and paying her bills  arising from this failure.

The Company apologised for their failure and stated that the experience of the Complainant was caused by a multiple of factors but was an extreme outlier.

Based on the evidence of the management team present at the hearing I am satisfied that this was an outlier. However, the Complainant has experience very significant financial stress arising from this failure. It also was a breach of her terms and conditions of employment that clearly stated that she would be paid on a timely basis and weekly. That did not occur.

However, there are no outstanding monies due, and all wages have been paid.

The fact is the pattern of non-compliance with timely payment equated to an unauthorised change in the contract.

Section 5 of the  Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 requires:

5.—(1) Subject to subsection (2), whenever a change is made or occurs in any of the particulars of the statement furnished by an employer under section 3, 4 or 6, the employer shall notify the employee in writing of the nature and date of the change as soon as may be thereafter, but not later than—

And section 3 of the Act requires:

h) the length of the intervals between the times at which remuneration is paid, whether a week, a month or any other interval,

in effect the pattern of ad hoc payments created a fundamental change in the contract without consultation.

The Act also provides for redress as follows:

in relation to a complaint of a contravention under change F36[section 3, 4, 5, 6, 6D, 6E, 6F, or 6G, ] and without prejudice to any order made under paragraph (e)] order the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as the adjudication officer considers just and equitable having regard to all of the circumstances, but not exceeding 4 weeks’ remuneration in respect of the employee’s employment calculated in accordance with regulations under section 17 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.]

The Complainant states that €3571.00 was paid late.

I determine that the complaint is well founded and based on the weekly payslips submitted and award €1000 gross compensation for the breach of section 5 and failure to consult relating to a change in a contract term as required relating to payment intervals.

CA-00059584-002 Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

The Act also provides for redress as follows:

in relation to a complaint of a contravention under change F36[section 3, 4, 5, 6, 6D, 6E, 6F, or 6G, ] and without prejudice to any order made under paragraph (e)] order the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as the adjudication officer considers just and equitable having regard to all of the circumstances, but not exceeding 4 weeks’ remuneration in respect of the employee’s employment calculated in accordance with regulations under section 17 of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.]

The Complainant states that €3571.00 was paid late. 

I determine that the complaint is well founded and based on the weekly payslips submitted award €1000 gross compensation for the breach of section 5 and failure to consult relating to a change in a contract term as detailed at section 3 relating to payment intervals.

CA-00059584-001 Payment of Wages Act 1991:

As all outstanding wages have been paid, I determine that this complaint is not well founded.

Change in Term-No consultation.